About Us

Meet the CEDI team

Amelia Gibson, MLIS, PhD

Associate Professor

Amelia Gibson is an Associate Professor at the College of Information Studies and the director of the CEDI Lab.

Dr. Gibson studies information marginalization, trust, and safety online, and in health and learning institutions (libraries and education), with a special focus on maternal health equity and disability justice. Her current work focuses on connections between personal assessments of danger/risk and marginalized people’s use of defensive information behaviors to protect self, family, and community from institutional harm.

Jasmine L. Garland McKinney, PhD, LCMHCA, NCC

Postdoctoral Associate

Dr. Jasmine L. Garland McKinney (she/her) earned a Bachelor of Arts (BA) in Sociology from North Carolina State University and a Master of Science (MS) in Counselor Education from East Carolina University – where she also earned a graduate certificate in Substance Abuse Counseling. Most recently, Dr. Garland McKinney earned a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in Counseling and Counselor Education from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG). Dr. Garland McKinney is a Licensed Clinical Mental Health Counselor Associate (NC), Professional School Counselor (NC), and Nationally Certified Counselor. Dr. Garland McKinney’s clinical and scholarly efforts center on Black women’s experiences with maternal mental health, intergenerational trauma, and the relationship between Black mothers and daughters – her work has been supported by organizations including Reproductive Health Impact (formerly the National Birth Equity Collaborative), the Association for Counselor Education and Supervision, and the National Board for Certified Counselors. Dr. Garland McKinney is so excited to join the College of Information Studies at the University of Maryland, where she hopes to continue to expand research on Black women’s maternal health experiences. Dr. Garland McKinney is a proud wife and mother of two girls, Blake and Cooper.

Beth St. Jean, MLIS, PhD

Associate Professor

Beth St. Jean is an Associate Professor in the College of Information Studies. She holds a PhD and an MS in Information from the University of Michigan School of Information. Beth teaches classes in the BSIS, MLIS, and PhD programs, particularly focusing on information behavior, research methods, consumer health informatics, and strategies for assisting people with their needs for information.

In her research, Beth aims to improve people’s long-term health outlooks by exploring the important interrelationships between their health-related information behaviors, their health literacy, their health-related self-efficacy, and their health behaviors. Her most current research focuses on consumer health information justice, aiming to identify the information-related causes of, and potential solutions to, health disparities. Beth and two of her colleagues at the iSchool, Ursula Gorham and Beth Bonsignore, just published a new undergraduate textbook: Understanding Human Information Behavior: When, How, and Why People Interact with Information.

Samuel DiBella

PhD Student

Samuel DiBella is a PhD student at the UMD College of Information Studies and a research assistant at the CEDI Lab. Sam holds an MSc in media studies from the London School of Economics and a BA in philosophy of language from New York University.

Sam DiBella’s research focuses on privacy, surveillance technology, the politics of encryption, and the ethics of information collection and publication. He studies how the increasing demand for data by governments and companies displaces the work of documentation onto vulnerable communities, in exchange for the promise of social services, as well as the social limitations of legal privacy rights in the United States.

Twanna Hodge

PhD Student

Twanna Hodge is a Ph.D. student in the College of Information Studies at the University of Maryland, College Park. Additionally, she is pursuing the Graduate Certificate in Latin American and Caribbean Students. She holds a BA in Humanities from the University of the Virgin Islands and a Master’s in Library and Information Science from the University of Washington. She is a 2013 American Library Association (ALA) Spectrum Scholar and a 2022 ALA Spectrum Doctoral Fellow.

Twanna Hodge‘s research includes the mental health literacy and mental health information-seeking behavior and needs of BIPOC Galleries, Libraries, Archives, and Museum (GLAM) employees and LIS students; mental health literacy and mental health information-seeking behavior of Afro-Caribbean immigrants; cultural humility in LIS education and librarianship; Afro-Caribbean immigrants’ ethnic identity formation; Afro-Caribbean GLAM workers experiences in US and the Caribbean; Afro-Caribbean students and professional experiences in LIS and the retention of Black students in LIS programs.

CEDI Alumni @ UNC

Nadia Pacheco Amaro

MSIS Student

Nadia Pacheco Amaro graduated from CEDI as a second-year MSIS student, Weiss Urban Livability Fellow, and Burmeister Fellow at UNC-Chapel Hill’s School of Information and Library Science. She received her BA in Political Science from the University of Pittsburgh and worked as a program coordinator for various nonprofit organizations prior to pursuing her Master‘s degree. She was born in Leon, Guanajuato, Mexico, but grew up moving between the United States and Mexico multiple times. Growing up bicultural and trilingual, she developed a unique perspective of the world. Nadia learned everyone has something to share and that it’s imperative to judgmentally listen and empathize. This empathy extends into her work where she is passionate about improving historically marginalized populations lives through design and research.

Ashton Davis

Undergraduate Student (CEDI Intern)

Ashton Davis worked with CEDI as a senior undergraduate student majoring in Linguistics and Human Development and Family Studies. She worked on the Connect EC Durham site with CEDI to gain more knowledge about providing Exceptional Children with resources within public schools.

Megan Threats

Ph.D. Student

Megan Threats, PhD, MSLIS, an Assistant Professor University of Michigan School of Information. She is also Visting Research Faculty at the Yale School of Public Health in the Center for Interdisciplinary Research on AIDS. Her program of research centers on leveraging information and technologies to support health promotion and disease prevention among sexual and gender minority communities of color.

Dr. Threats received her Ph.D. from the School of Information and Library Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Master of Science in Library and Information Science from Syracuse University, and a dual B.A. in Political Theory and Constitutional Democrary and Comparative Cultures and Politics from Michigan State University. She is also a Forward Fellow at the Social Intervention Group at Columbia University, and a Faculty Affiliate at the Center for Critical Race and Digital Studies at New York University.

Laura March, MS, MEd

PhD Student

Laura March worked with CEDI as a PhD student and Asheim Fellow at UNC-Chapel Hill’s School of Information and Library Sciences. Laura is an instructional designer, trainer, and web developer with more than ten years of experience designing accessible online environments and teaching virtually. Prior to starting her PhD, Laura worked at UNC-Chapel Hill’s Carolina Office for Online Learning, American University‘s Center for Teaching, Research & Learning in Washington, D.C. and the Pennsylvania State University’s Education Technology Services. She received an MS in Art Education and an MEd in Instructional Systems. Her research interests include universal design (for learning and for the web), educational technology, digital and visual culture, and informal learning at cultural institutions. Laura enjoy painting friends and family in the style of famous works of art, trivia games, and eating far too much pizza.

Alexis Romero Walker, MA

PhD Student

Alexis Romero Walker is currently an Assistant Professor of Communications and Media at Manhattanville College. She was a Roy H. Park Fellow at UNC-Chapel Hill’s Hussman School of Journalism and Media. Her primary research interests are around creating an equitable media pedagogy in higher education media classrooms through critical media literacy practices, with a focus on how to make visual media-making better representative for womxn and communities of color. Her work is directly connected to her experience in filmmaking, and she believes that when media skills classrooms in higher education teach about gender, sexuality, race, and disability, there will be more empathetic media practitioners in the field.

Alexis was awarded the William Francis Clingman Jr. Ethics Award in 2019 for her work in the Media Literacy field, and was a member of the student leadership council for the National Association of Media Literacy Education (Namle.net) for three years. She received her MA from Sacred Heart University in Media Literacy and Social Justice, and her BA from BYU-Utah in Media Arts. Alexis also enjoys yoga, acai bowls, and her favorite movie is "The Red Shoes" (1948).

Alexandra Paz Cody

MSLS Student

Alexandra Paz Cody worked with CEDI as an MSLS student at UNC’s School of Library and Information Science. After earning her bachelors in English from Northwest University, Alex left her home state of Washington to teach English Language Arts in Northampton County, NC as a corps member in Teach for America. This experience lead to her desire to advocate for digital literacy and accessibility for students of all ages. Since arriving at SILS, Alex teaches with the Community Workshop Series and is interested in the issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion within the technology in the public sphere, such as affordable internet access and digital literacy education in schools and libraries. In addition to her participation in CEDI Lab, Alex was also a research assistant for the Community-Driven Archives Mellon Grant within the Southern Historical Collection.

Lianza Reyes

MSIS Student

Lianza Reyes worked with CEDI as an MSIS student with an interest in human-computer interaction, user experience, and user interface design. She joined the CEDI Lab to continue her passion for making information accessible to non-English speaking communities. In her free time, Lianza ran a small business called Lines by Lianza and volunteered with the Community Workshop Series. Her academic interests include accessibility, artistic expression, and equitable design in UX. She holds a BS in Broadcast and Digital Journalism at Syracuse University.

Dana McCraw

Undergraduate Student (CEDI Intern)

Dana worked with CEDI as a senior. She graduated from UNC-Chapel Hill in May of 2021 with degrees in Human Development and Family Studies and Communication Studies and a minor in Social and Economic Justice. Dana’s contributions to the CEDI Lab focused on creating learning resources to help K-12 students with disabilities, their parents, and their teachers. Following graduation, Dana attended Vanderbilt University’s Peabody College as part of the Master’s in Elementary Education Program.

Mariesha McAdoo

MSIS Student

During her time at the CEDI lab, Mariesha McAdoo was an MSIS student, Carolina Technology Associate, and Burmeister Fellow at UNC-Chapel Hill’s School of Information and Library Science. She received her BA in Psychology from Duke University and worked as a college adviser prior to pursuing graduate education. Her academic interests include UX/UI design and data science centering historically marginalized populations. She is invested in re-imagining how data analytics, visualization, and management can, and should, empower Black and rural communities. Mariesha’s master’s paper investigated how data collection informs, and is informed by, performance measurements in nonprofit organizations.

Steph Crowell

MSLS Student

During their time with the lab, Steph Crowell was an MSLS student on the Archives and Records Management (ARM) track at UNC SILS. They received their BA in Medieval and Renaissance Studies from Duke University. Their master’s paper explores the ways in which communities archives choose to perform outreach activities.

About Us

Meet the CEDI team

Amelia Gibson, MLIS, PhD

Jasmine L. Garland McKinney, PhD, LCMHCA, NCC

Beth St. Jean, MLIS, PhD

Samuel DiBella

Twanna Hodge

CEDI Alumni @ UNC

Nadia Pacheco Amaro

Ashton Davis

Megan Threats

Laura March, MS, MEd

Alexis Romero Walker, MA

Alexandra Paz Cody

Lianza Reyes

Dana McCraw

Mariesha McAdoo

Steph Crowell

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