Mosaic Scholarship: Maia Mislang

Maia Mislang, who is pursuing a Master of Library Information Science degree at the University of California, Los Angeles, is a 2026 recipient of the Mosaic Scholarship given by the Society of American Archivists (SAA). The $5,000 scholarship is given to a student who demonstrates potential for scholastic and personal achievement and who manifests a commitment both to the archival profession and to advancing diversity concerns within it.

As an undergraduate student at the University of California, Santa Cruz, Mislang worked on Watsonville is in the Heart, a Filipino American community archives doing groundbreaking work in Central California. In that role, she drew on the histories of the first Filipino agricultural migrants to the Pajaro Valley to create a zine titled “I’m Just Nosy.” Dr. Michelle Caswell, who recommended Mislang for the Mosaic Scholarship, praised the zine as “impressive in its attention to detail, the way it drew on oral histories and photographic collections, and the ways it made history more accessible and important to second- and third-generation Asian American college students.”

As an intern with the Presidio Research Center (PRC) at the Santa Barbara Trust for Historic Preservation, Mislang enthusiastically tackled the many issues that can arise when working with diverse materials in collections, as well as the complexities of working with donors. The PRC director said that her “ability to work independently while also pursuing larger goals (such as critically evaluating the language used in finding aids to describe materials) establishes her as exactly the kind of critical practitioner needed in the coming generations to advocate for and demonstrate equity and justice in memory work more broadly.”

First awarded in 2009, the Mosaic Scholarship also provides recipients with a one-year membership in SAA and a complimentary registration to the SAA conference.