Summer Mengarelli (MS/MSI ’24) started at the University of Michigan School of Information (UMSI) in 2021 to become a librarian after working as a student assistant in the library at her undergraduate university. She describes how her undergraduate experience guided her interest in pursuing a librarianship. “I’m interested in a lot of things and it was hard for me to decide what I wanted to do exactly,” says Mengarelli. “Librarianship is a good fit for that because part of what I like so much about my job is that I get to interact with people who are doing all sorts of different things and learn a little bit about those different things.” 

During her first year at U-M she started working at the Clark Library and met the Geographic Information Systems (GIS) librarians. She was introduced to GIS and joined the GIS Community of Practice group, where she learned more about the practical uses of GIS. Mengarelli also volunteered at the U-M Museum of Zoology, where she interacted with School for Environment and Sustainability (SEAS) students and learned more about SEAS and its master’s programs. In 2022 she decided to pursue a dual degree at SEAS specializing in Geospatial Data Sciences (GDS).  

Mengarelli wanted to complete a master’s thesis that would allow her to utilize her two degrees. Her thesis examined access and equity in scientific collections. “I was interested in biodiversity data and how people access it and what are the barriers to people accessing it,” she says. 

She worked with SEAS Associate Professor Brian Weeks to analyze over six million ornithology specimen records, noting the distance between where specimens were collected and stored. 

The findings revealed “that specimens that are collected in developing countries tend to travel further to the institution that's storing them than specimens that are collected in developed countries. And so what that means is that the people who live in those biodiverse-rich countries are separated from the research that is being done on them because the specimens are exported to countries or institutions in developed countries,” she explains.

Her thesis shaped her values on data accessibility and open science and now guides her work as a data services librarian within the Navari Family Center for Digital Scholarship in the Hesburgh Library at the University of Notre Dame. Part of her role is supporting researchers who are applying for federal funding and helping them develop plans to manage and share research data. As a faculty member she is also responsible for “scholarly output, whether that be preparing conference presentations or publications… I love being at a school where they value their research output. That was something that was important to me being at the University of Michigan.” 

Mengarelli adds: “It gives me hope that there seem to be some changes within different disciplines moving more toward open science. It’s a great thing that more and more disciplines are moving toward recognizing that sharing your data enables better science. It empowers reproducibility and it makes science more accessible and equitable for people in countries that maybe haven't historically been invited to the table with research.” 

In addition to her academic research, Mengarelli teaches workshops and classes in R, Python and data visualization. She also consults one-on-one with faculty, staff and students to help find, use and document data. She is thankful for the SEAS courses that contributed to her ability to teach. “So much of my work now is writing code or teaching people how to write code, and my in-depth understanding of that came from my SEAS coursework,” she says. 

She also runs programs at the library and started a Critical Tech Cafe book club to facilitate discussions between staff, faculty and students about “big changes in tech, like AI and tech development for humanitarian relief and what are the sort of big ethical questions related to these sorts of things?”  

Reflecting on her time at SEAS, Mengarelli says her professors “taught me how to do research”—knowledge she uses now as she teaches others research skills and supports the work happening at Notre Dame.