Current Position

Teaching Assistant Professor, 2020 –
School of Computing and Information, University of Pittsburgh

Research and Teaching Areas

Archival Studies; Personal and Community Archives; Archival Education; Digital Preservation and Sustainability; Digital and Data Literacy; Information Ethics

Education

PhD, Information Culture and Data Stewardship, 2020
School of Computing and Information, University of Pittsburgh
Dissertation: Unruly Records: Personal Archives, Sociotechnical Infrastructure, and Archival Practice

MLIS, Archives and Information Science, 2012
Graduate School of Library and Information Science, Simmons College

BA, Creative Writing, 2008
Carlow University

Grants, Scholarships, Awards

Pitt Cyber Accelerator Grant 
“Investigating Adoption and Reusability of Data and Digital Literacy Materials” 
with Liz Monk (PI), Nora Mattern, Veena Vasudevan, and Jessica Ghilani
University of Pittsburgh 2022-2023 

SCI Teaching and Mentoring Small Grant
“Connecting Curriculum to Community”
PI, with Nora Mattern, Rosta Farzan, Jessica Fitzpatrick, Ahmed Ibrahim, and Jane Thaler
University of Pittsburgh, 2022-2023

Summer Design Fellowship, Engaged Scholarship Development Initiative
University of Pittsburgh, 2021-2022

SCI Teaching and Mentoring Small Grant
“Actionable Items Leading to Measurable Increase in Cybersecurity Diversity”
with Ahmed Ibrahim (PI), Sherif Khattab, and Leona Mitchell
University of Pittsburgh, 2021-2022

Margaret Mary Corbett Memorial Award for best LIS dissertation proposal, University of Pittsburgh, April 2019.

Student Travel Award, School of Computing and Information, University of Pittsburgh
Digital Art History Conference, Zagreb, Croatia, November 2018

H.W. Wilson Scholarship, University of Pittsburgh, 2018

HASTAC Scholars Fellowship, November 2016 – October 2018

(re)Newport Game Design Pilot Award
Catalyzing Newport, January 2016

Early American Women’s History: Teaching from within the Archives
NEH Summer Institute, July 2015

Selected Publications and Press

Burton, Matt, Chelsea Gunn, Eleanor Mattern, and Marcia Rapchak. “Designing the MLIS: How Design Thinking Can Prepare Information Professionals.” In Proceedings of 2020 ALISE Conference, October 2020.

Langmead, Alison, Chelsea Gunn, and Aisling Quigley. “Sustaining DH: Workshops on Sustainability for Digital Projects.” NEH Institute for Advanced Topics in the Digital Humanities. White paper, 2019.

Levine, Marty. “Doctoral Student Turns Detective to Catalog Pitt’s Public Art.” University Times. December 18, 2019. https://www.utimes.pitt.edu/news/doctoral-student-turns.

Mattern, Eleanor and Chelsea Gunn. “Teaching Information Ethics: A Look at the Ethical Dimensions of iSchool Curricula.” Journal of Information Ethics 28, no. 2 (2019): 51-65.

Gunn, Chelsea. “The Personal Digital Archiving Conference: Looking Back at 2018 and Ahead to 2019.” Preservation, Digital Technology, and Culture 48 no 1 (2019): 3-5.

Women in Tech Pittsburgh. “Spotlight 74: Chelsea Gunn, University of Pittsburgh School of Computing and Information PhD Candidate.” February 13, 2019.

Langmead, Alison, Aisling Quigley, Chelsea Gunn, Jedd Hakimi, and Lindsay Decker. “Sustaining MedArt: The Impact of Socio-Technical Factors on Digital Preservation Strategies. Report of research funded by the NEH Division of Preservation and Access. Final report, 2018.

Gunn, Chelsea. “Fantasies of the Library.” Review of Fantasies of the Library, edited by Anna-Sophie Spring and Etienne Turpin. Contemporaneity 6 no. 1 (2017): 89-92.

Gunn, Chelsea. “Putting Personal Digital Archives in Context.” In The Complete Guide to Personal Digital Archiving, edited by Brianna Marshall, xi-xxii. Chicago: ALA Editions, 2017.

Gunn, Chelsea, Emily Powers Souza, Chris Tanguay, Kate Thornhill, and Emily Toner. “Sixteen Students, Fourteen Weeks: Building a Digital Library through Collaborative Learning.” In Proceedings of Querying the Library: Digitization and its Impact, edited by Mark Caprio, 44-56. Providence: Rhode Island College, 2014.

Grefe, Morgan, Elyssa Tardif, and Chelsea Gunn. Rhode Island’s History and Heritage Sector: A Call for Collaboration and Investment. RHODI Project white paper, 2013.

Selected Presentations

Burton, Matt, Chelsea Gunn, Eleanor Mattern, and Marcia Rapchak. “Designing the MLIS: How Design Thinking Can Prepare Information Professionals.” ALISE Annual Conference, October 2020. Online due to Covid-19.

“Memorialization as Maintenance.” Paper presented with Aisling Quigley at Maintainers III: Practice, Policy, and Care, Washington DC, October 2019.

“Personal Digital Memorials.” Paper presented with Aisling Quigley at Personal Digital Archiving, Pittsburgh, PA, May 2019.

“Little Data in a Big World: Digitally Consolidating Dispersed Personal Archives.” Paper presented with Rae Di Cicco at Digital Art History – Methods, Practices, Epistemologies, Zagreb, Croatia, November 2018.

“Consenting to be (un)Seen: Personal Privacy Practice in the Digital Age.” Presented with S.E. Hackney and S.L. Nelson at the Cultural Studies Association annual conference, Pittsburgh, PA, May 2018.

“Capturing Identity: Using Institutional Recordkeeping Systems to Explore Personal Records.” Paper presented with Aisling Quigley at Personal Digital Archiving, Houston, TX, April 2018.

“Self-Documentation and Self-Preservation: Incorporating a Punk Ethics into Archival Practice.” Paper presented at the Curating Resistance: Punk as Archival Method, University of California, Los Angeles, February 2018.

“I Do Not Think It Means What You Think It Means: Differing Conceptions of the Archive.” Panel participant with Caitlin Christian-Lamb, Jeannette Bastian, Aaisha Haykal, Kelly Kietur, and David Staniunas at the Society of American Archivists annual meeting, Portland, OR, July 2017.

“The Personal Computer as Archival Artifact and Collection.” Paper presented at the Keystone DH, Philadelphia, PA, July 2017.

“Mobile Media Storytelling in the Cultural Heritage Sector.” Paper presented with Aisling Quigley at the Keystone DH, Pittsburgh, PA, June 2016.

“Behind the Scenes of Place-Based Storytelling.” Paper presented at The New Tour, Providence, RI, September 2015.

“The RHODI Project: Assessing and Connecting Rhode Island’s History and Heritage Sector.” Paper presented with Elyssa Tardif at the Rhode Island Library Association annual conference, Newport, RI, June 2014.

“The State of Statewide Repositories in New England and How They Are Aggregating Special Collections.” Invited panelist at the New England Archivists spring meeting, Portsmouth, NH, March 2014.

“Sixteen Students, Fourteen Weeks: Building a Digital Library through Collaborative Learning.” Paper presented with Emily Powers Souza, Chris Tanguay, Kate Thornhill, and Emily Toner at the Querying the Library: Digitization and Its Impact, Providence, RI, May 2013.

Selected Colloquia and Workshops

“Project Sustainability.” Co-facilitated with Aisling Quigley. ILiADS Institute for Liberal Arts Digital Scholarship. Online due to Covid-19. July 28, 2021.

“Teaching About/In Community Archives: Workshopping Strategies for Equivocal Archival Practices.” Co-facilitated with Jane Thaler. Archival Education and Research Institute. Online due to Covid-19. July 14, 2021.

“‘Becoming an Archivist in Times of Uncertainty and Unrest’: Teaching Introduction to Archives Courses in the Current Climate.” Co-facilitated with Caitlin Christian-Lamb, Marika Cifor, Jamie Lee, and Adam Kriesberg. Archival Education and Research Institute. Online due to Covid-19. July 16, 2021.

“Creating Web Archives with Webrecorder.” Workshop given in Digital Scholarship Services, Hillman Library, University of Pittsburgh, February 2020.

“Creating Web Archives with Webrecorder.” Workshop given in Digital Scholarship Services, Hillman Library, University of Pittsburgh, September 2019.

“Introduction to Storytelling with Twine.” Workshop given with Aisling Quigley in Digital Scholarship Services, Hillman Library, University of Pittsburgh, November 2017.

“Hypothes.is Web Annotation.” Workshop given with Aisling Quigley in Digital Scholarship Services, Hillman Library, University of Pittsburgh, February 2017.

“Decomposing Bodies to Data (after)Lives: Expanding Modes of Academic Research.” Colloquium presented with Alison Langmead and Aisling Quigley given to the History of Art and Architecture department, University of Pittsburgh, September 2016.

“Project Management Tools and Techniques.” Workshop given with Kate Joranson in the Visual Media Workshop, University of Pittsburgh, September 2016.

“Looking Back to Look Forward: Studying the Past to Illuminate the Present and Plan for the Future.” Invited panelist at MIY Studios, Providence, RI, May 2016.

“The History of Women in Rock.” Workshop and presentation given at Ladies Rock Camp, Pawtucket, RI, January 2014.

Selected Posters

“Sixteen Students, Fourteen Weeks: Building a Digital Library through Collaborative Learning.” Poster presented with Emily Powers Souza, Chris Tanguay, Kate Thornhill, and Emily Toner at the ASIS&T Annual Meeting, Baltimore, MD, October 2012.

Selected Exhibitions

“Data (after)Lives: The Persistence of Encoded Identity.” Technical Associate for exhibition in the University Art Gallery, University of Pittsburgh, September – October 2016.

Selected Web-Based Scholarship

“Decomposing Bodies.” Project website created with Aisling Quigley, 2016. https://sites.haa.pitt.edu/db/.

“Newportal.” Collections website created for the Newportal consortium. 2015. http://newportalri.org/.

Selected Professional Experience

Archivist and Manager of Digital Initiatives
Newport Historical Society, 2014 – 2015

Associate Archivist
The Digital Ark, 2011 – 2014

RHODI Project Coordinator
Rhode Island Historical Society, 2013 – 2014

RHODI Field Surveyor
Rhode Island Historical Society, 2012 – 2013

Library and Archives Intern
Salzburg Global Seminar, 2012

White House Photographs Digital Archives Intern
John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, 2011 – 2012

Librarian
The UNI Project, 2011

Microfilm Clerk
Carnegie Public Library, 2006 – 2008

Selected Service

Board of Directors, Prototype, Pittsburgh, PA, 2020-Present.

Co-Chair, Planning Committee, Personal Digital Archiving, Pittsburgh, PA, May 2019.

On-site assistant and trainer, Art and Feminism Wikipedia Edit-a-thon, Carnegie Museum of Art, March 2018.

Program committee member, DLF Forum, Pittsburgh, PA, October 2017.

Editor-at-large, DH and Lib, 2016.

Editor-at-large, Digital Humanities Now, 2016.

Digital Public Library of America Community Rep, 2013 – 2014





2023