While these two fabulous ladies aren’t brand new to IWA, they both recently accepted positions as graduate assistants for the up-coming semesters.

Rachel Black grew up in the southwestern corner of Iowa in a tiny town that had more ponies than people. Now living in the Iowa City area, she hopes to graduate with a MLIS this December.

Her archives journey began last summer as a volunteer working on the Myrtle Hinkhouse papers. She is excited to tackle more collections this fall.

Outside of the archives, Rachel can be found knitting poorly constructed hand towels, messing up her kitchen while baking, losing arrows on the archery range, and just generally enjoying her life.

Katie Gandhi still doesn’t know what she wants to be when she grows up, but she does know she loves libraries, history, people, and archives. Other past-times include hiking, painting, weaving, and playing cello.

Since being hired in January, her primary focus has been helping Janet prepare content for the IWA’s “Migration is Beautiful” project Omeka site, which went live on July 5th.

Katie just finished an M.S. in Urban and Regional Planning and will be working to complete her M.A. in Library and Information Science this year.