I am the librarian for South Asian Studies and Anthropology. My primary duties involve the acquisition of materials and reference/consultation for these two subject areas. I work primarily with students and faculty of the University of Michigan but I also get requests from researchers throughout the world. My background is in anthropology. I am ABD from Syracuse University. I had a Fulbright Doctoral Dissertation that funded my research in India. For 20 months I lived in Orissa, India, half the time in Bhubaneswar (the capital) and the other half in a small village. My dissertation title was: "Folk Conceptions of Mental Disorders in Orissa". Even though I did not finish my dissertation I learned a lot and throughout my library career I have used my knowledge of South Asia (especially language) in different positions I have held. 

In graduate school I had a Title VI Fellowship (FLAS) and studied Hindi for two years. I then did one year of study in the language Oriya. I have a great love for Orissa and work hard to expand our Oriya collections. The University of Michigan is one of the few university libraries that actively collects Oriya language materials.