• Education

    Department of Information Studies, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA | 2020

    Doctor of Philosophy

    The School of Information, UC Berkeley, Berkeley CA | 2016

    Master of Information and Management Systems

    The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL | 2008

    Bachelors in Fine Arts

    Concentration: Animation and Printmaking

    Chicago Park District, Chicago, IL | 2010

    Course: American Sign Language

    Folkuniversitetet, Stockholm, Sweden | 2009

    Certificate in Intermediate (B1) Swedish

  • Publications

    Refereed Publications

    Brilmyer, Gracen, and Crystal Lee. 2023. “‘Terms of Use: Crip Legibility in Information Systems.” First Monday, January. https://doi.org/10.5210/fm.v28i1.12935.

    Brilmyer, Gracen. 2022. “‘They Weren’t Necessarily Designed with Lived Experiences of Disability in Mind’: The Affect of Archival In/Accessibility and ‘Emotionally Expensive’ Spatial Un/Belonging” Archivaria, December 5, 2022, 120–53. https://archivaria.ca/index.php/archivaria/article/view/13869.

    Brilmyer, Gracen. 2022. “Toward a Crip Provenance: Centering Disability in Archives through Its Absence.” Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies 9, no. 1. https://elischolar.library.yale.edu/jcas/vol9/iss1/3.

    Brilmyer, Gracen Mikus. 2021. “'I’m also prepared to not find me. It's great when I do, but it doesn't hurt if I don't': crip time and anticipatory erasure for disabled archival users.” Archival Science. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10502-021-09372-1.

    Brilmyer, Gracen, Michelle Caswell, and Marika Cifor. “Radical Empathy in Archival Practice Poster and Postcards.” Journal of Critical Library and Information Studies 3, no. 2. Accessed May 26, 2021. https://journals.litwinbooks.com/index.php/jclis/article/view/169.
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    | Download Poster on Printable 8.5" x 11" Pages (with assembly instructions) |
    | Download Postcards |

    Brilmyer, Gracen. 2020. “Towards Sickness: Developing a Critical Disability Archival Methodology.” Journal of Feminist Scholarship 17 (17): 26–45. https://doi.org/10.23860/jfs.2020.17.03.

    Brilmyer, Gracen. 2020. “On Language, Scientific Metaphor, and Endocrine Disruption: An Interview with Feminist Scientist Ana Soto.” Catalyst: Feminism, Theory, Technoscience 6 (1). https://doi.org/10.28968/cftt.v6i1.33445.

    Brilmyer, Gracen M. “‘It Could Have Been Us in a Different Moment. It Still Is Us in Many Ways’: Community Identification and the Violence of Archival Representation of Disability.” In Sustainable Digital Communities, edited by Anneli Sundqvist, Gerd Berget, Jan Nolin, and Kjell Ivar Skjerdingstad, 480–86. Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43687-2_38.

    Brilmyer, Gracen, Joyce Gabiola, Jimmy Zavala, Michelle Caswell. “Reciprocal Archival Imaginaries: The shifting boundaries of “community” in community archives.” Archivaria 88 (November 14, 2019): 6–48.

    Caswell, Michelle, Joyce Gabiola, Gracen Brilmyer, and Jimmy Zavala. “‘Carry It Forward’: Community-Based Conceptualizations of Accountability.” In Defining a Discipline: Archival Research and Practice in the Twenty-First Century, Essays in Honor of Richard J. Cox, edited by Jeannette A. Bastian and Elizabeth Yakel, 64–77. Chicago, Ill.: Society of American Archivists, 2019..

    Tai, Jessica, Michelle Caswell, Joyce Gabiola, Jimmy Zavala, and Gracen Brilmyer. “Summoning the Ghosts: Records as Agents in Community Archives.” Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies 6, no. 1 (June 20, 2019). https://elischolar.library.yale.edu/jcas/vol6/iss1/18.olar.library.yale.edu/jcas/vol6/iss1/18.

    Brilmyer, Gracen, María Montenegro, and Anne J. Gilliland. “Introduction: [Mis]Representation, [Dis]Memory, & [Re]Figuring the Archival Lens.” InterActions: UCLA Journal of Education and Information Studies 15, no. 2 (2019). https://escholarship.org/uc/item/9j13h4zb.

    Brilmyer, Gracen. “Archival Assemblages: Applying Disability Studies’ Political/Relational Model to Archival Description.” Archival Science, April 2, 2018, 1–24. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10502-018-9287-6.

    Caswell, Michelle, Joyce Gabiola, Jimmy Zavala, Gracen Brilmyer, and Marika Cifor. “Imagining Transformative Spaces: The Personal–political Sites of Community Archives.” Archival Science, January 30, 2018, 1–21. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10502-018-9286-7.

    Michelle Caswell with graphic design by: Brilmyer, Gracen.“Teaching to Dismantle White Supremacy in Archives.” The Library Quarterly 87, no. 3 (June 8, 2017): 222–35. https://doi.org/10.1086/692299.
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    | Download Indivudual Printable Pages (with assembly instructions) |

    Brilmyer, Gracen. “CalBug and Its Search Interface Redesign.” In The Discipline of Organizing, by Robert J. Glushko, 589–93, 3rd ed. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2015.

    Bergsten, Johannes, Gracen Brilmyer, Alex Crampton-Platt, and Anders Nilsson. “Sympatry and Colour Variation Disguised Well-Differentiated Sister Species: Suphrodytes Revised with Integrative Taxonomy Including 5 Kbp of Housekeeping Genes (Coleoptera: Dytiscidae) (PDF Download Available).” DNA Barcodes 1 (November 2012): 1–18. doi:10.2478/dna-2012-0001.

    Gonzáles, Jorge, James H. Boone, Gracen Brilmyer, and Daniel Lee. “Computerization of the Field Museum of Natural History Giant Butterfly Moth Collection (Castniidae).” News of the Lepidopterists’ Society 38, no. 2 (2010): 72–73.

    ———. “The Giant Butterfly-moths of the Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, with notes on the Herman Strecker collection.” SHILAP Revista de Lepidopterología 38, no. 152 (2010): 385–409.

    Boone, James H., Gracen Brilmyer, and Michael Kippenhan. “Computerization of the Field Museum of Natural History Tiger Beetle Collection.” Cicindela 40, no. 4 (2008): 69–70.

    Non-Refereed Publications & Book Reviews

    Brilmyer, Gracen. “Review of Building Access: Universal Design and the Politics of Disability by Aimi Hamraie.” Catalyst: Feminism, Theory, Technoscience 5, no. 2 (2019).

    Brilmyer, Gracen. “Accessible Spaces: A Fragrance-Free Toolkit.” UCLA Center for the Study of Women, January 2019.

    Brilmyer, Gracen. “Why Disability Studies for Archives?” UCLA Center for the Study of Women, July 2018.

    Brilmyer, Gracen and Alexandra M. Apolloni. “Creating Accessible Campuses Through Fragrance-Free Policies.” 2017, no. 24 (May 1, 2017). https://escholarship.org/uc/item/32z6p6cj.

  • Conferences & Invited Seminars

    Data, Archives and Information in Society (DAIS) Seminar, School of Information University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan,Cripping Absence: Thinking through the archival erasure(s) of disability, invited symposium talk, October 13 2023.

    The international Association for Media and History (IAMHIST), Université du Québec à Montréal, Opening Plenary: Archives, Access, And Disability: Revealing The Traces Of Absence, invited plenary panel with Mouloud Boukala, Sarah Heussaff, Mélanie Millette, and Michael Marlatt June 20-22, 2023.

    The Archival Education and Research Initiative (AERI), Archiving Crip Futures // Cripping Future Archives: Conversations about new disability archives, June 19-23, 2023.

    l'Association des bibliothécaires du Québec - Quebec Library Association (ABQLA), “Letting us ourselves imagine a little bit more”: Dreaming Disability Archives Differently, with Sam Pappas. May 26, 2023.

    Strategies of Critique 2023: Care and Cure, “Fixing” Archives: Incomplete provenance & the desire for archival cures, May 17-19, 2023.

    The Archives Association of Ontario Annual Conference, Disabled Labour & Professional Standards: How the archival profession impacts disabled workers, May 10-12, 2023.

    Disability and Accessibility Symposium at Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, Disabled Labour & Professional Standards: How the archival profession impacts disabled workers, invited panel: Accessibility in the Cultural Sector with Charlotte Martin, Daniel Cress, Mara Mills, and Georgina Kleege, April 4, 2023.

    UnConference of the Disability Studies and Action Collaborative, DDisability & Archival Labour: Disabled Archivist’s Perspective, October 22-23, 2022.

    Virtual Annual Meeting of the Society of American Archivists, Panel: We Don’t Have a Checklist: Archival Labor(s) and Leadership of Minoritized Archivists, with Joyce Gabiola, Nancy Godoy, and Jimmy Zavala. August 20-27, 2022.

    Documenting Disability: Preserving and Accessing Disabled Heritage, University of Dundee, Archival Affect: Feeling disability history. July 27, 2022.

    The Archival Education and Research Initiative (AERI), Panel: How We Got Here: Creating Space for Disabled Archival Workers, with Veronica Denison, Michelle Ganz, and Lydia Tang. July 9 2022.

    Association for Canadian Archivists Annual Meeting, Panel: The Labour of Belonging: Disabled Archivists & Archival Work, with Tara Brar and Veronica Denison. June 17, 2022.

    Society of Disability Studies Annual Conference, Panel: Finding Disabled People in Archives, with Jenifer Barclay, Michelle Ganz, Aimi Hamraie, and Corbett O’Toole. April 9-12, 2022.

    Provenance in Place: A Symposium, The Archival Technologies Lab at the City University of New York and the School of Information Management at Dalhousie University, Crip Provenance: Place, Space, & Disability. March 7, 2022.

    Archive / CounterArchive Special Lecture, Crip Provenance: Place, Space, & Disability. February 25, 2021.

    Relating Oral History 2022 Workshop Series, Columbia University, New York, NY, elling and Preserving Disabled Stories, with Alice Wong, and Liú Méi-Zhì Bransfield Chen. February 24, 2022.

    Virtual Annual Meeting of the Society of American Archivists, Archival Access: Disabled archival users and the affect of in/accessibility, August 2-6, 2021.

    Disability Studies Conference 2021, Auckland, New Zealand, Accessing History: Disabled archival users and the affect of in/accessibility, July 10-12, 2021.

    Association for Canadian Archivists Annual Meeting, Reflecting and Imagining Visions for Archival Education, Panel, June 7-11 2021.

    Association for Canadian Archivists University of British Columbia Panel, Records and Archives in Times of Crisis: Allyship in the Archives, Panel, May 28, 2021.

    UCLA Information Studies Colloquium, Los Angeles, CA, Archival Access: Disabled Archival Users and The Affects of In/Accessibility, March 4, 2021.

    Archive / CounterArchive Special Lecture, Toronto, ON, “It felt like everything”: Archival Decision-Making & Impacts on Disabled Communities, February 25, 2021

    International Conference on the History of Records and Archives (ICHORA 2020), Ann Arbor, Michigan, Archival Cures: Refiguring Provenance and the Desire for the Whole, October 26–30, 2020

    Western History Association Annual Conference, Albuquerque, NM, Roundtable Discussion on Disability and Equity within History Professions, October 13-17, 2020

    iConference 2020, Borås, Sweden, “It could have been us in a different moment. It still is us in many ways”: Self identification and the violence of archival representation of disability, March 23-26, 2020

    Special Event co-sponsored by Center for Technology, Society & Policy, Algorithmic Fairness and Opacity Working Group, and Disability Studies Minor & Research Cluster, University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, “The perverse absent-presence”: Disability and the perception of archival representation, February 4, 2020

    UnConference of the Disability Studies and Action Collaborative, Bellingham, WA, Re/Telling History: How disabled people understand themselves through archives, October 19, 2019

    The Archival Education and Research Initiative (AERI), Liverpool, UK, Witnessing Disability in History: The Effects and Affects of Archival Mis/representation, July 8-12, 2019

    Community Informatics Research Network (CIRN), Prato, Italy, Imagined Others: The shifting boundaries of “community” in community archives , October 24-28, 2018

    Digital Library Federation, Las Vegas, NV, Panel: Community Archives: New Theories of Time, Access, Community, and Agency, presented with Michelle Caswell, Joyce Gabiola, and Jessica Tai, Oct 15-17, 2018

    The Archival Education and Research Initiative (AERI), Tuscaloosa, AL, Towards Sickness: Embracing the impossible in archival practice, July 9-13, 2018

    Lambda Archives of San Diego, San Diego, CA, Community Archives: New Theories of Impact, Space, and Community, presented with Michelle Caswell and Joyce Gabiola, June 21, 2018

    The Archival Education and Research Initiative (AERI), Toronto, ON, A Political/Relational Archival Approach: Applying Disability Studies’ Political/Relational to Archival Studies, July 10-14 2017

    Allied Media Conference, Detroit, MI, The Vision Archive: Picturing the World We Want to Live In, June 15-18 2017

    Media Justice: Race, borders, disability and data, International Communications Association (ICA) Preconference, San Diego, CA, Problematizing Notions of Accessibility in the Digital Archive, May 25 2017

    Disability as Spectacle, Los Angeles, CA, Preservation: Chemical Consumption in Natural History, April 13-14 2017

    Feminist Translations / Queer Mobilities Symposium, Berkeley, CA, Queering the Digital Archive: Accessibility of Information, December 2014

    International Union for the Study of Social Insects, Cairns, Australia, The Impact of Climatic Changes on Ant Distributions, July 2014

    Integrated Digitized Biocollections (iDigBio), University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI - Fluid-preserved Invertebrate Imaging Workshop, Conceptualizing and Implementing Large Scale Collection Digitization, September 2013

    Integrated Digitized Biocollections (iDigBio), Chicago, IL - Digitizing Dried Insects Digitization Workshop, Leica High-Resolution Imaging System Demo, April 2013