Advisory Council
We are grateful to our project advisors who have shared their professional expertise and lived experiences to guide and support our initiative, helping ensure the success and impact of the Autistic Voices Oral History Project.
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Please reach out if you are interested in joining our Advisory Council!
Gracen Brilmyer, PhD
Gracen Brilmyer is a white, queer, non-binary (pronouns: they/them), Disabled person. They are currently an Assistant Professor at McGill University's School of Information Studies and the Director of the Disability Archives Lab. They received their PhD from the Department of Information Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), with a Certificate in Gender Studies. Their current research lies at the intersection of disability studies, archival studies, and the history of science, centering on the history of natural history museums and their archives. Their research often centers around the broad question: "How do we tell the history of disability when there is little or no archival evidence?"
Alex Eddings
Alex Eddings is a vibrant creative with a passion for art, biking, and design. After receiving a late diagnosis of autism (and adhd), she embarked on a personal journey of self-discovery, determined to unravel the intricacies of her own mind. Inspired by her experience, she hopes to help others navigate their own paths, offering support and guidance to those on a similar journey of understanding and acceptance.
Michael Marlatt
Michael Marlatt (he/him) is a disabled film archivist, archival accessibility consultant, and archival producer based in New Brunswick, Canada. Michael received his PhD at York University in the Communication & Culture program. His work examined accessibility gaps in moving image archival education in North America from the lived experience of students and alumni. Michael has hosted archival accessibility workshops with various types of archives including broadcasting, governmental, and archivist professional organizations. He also volunteers in archival professional development.
Miriam Meislik
Miriam Meislik has been an archivist for over 30 years. She currently serves as the media archivist for the University of Pittsburgh Library System where she oversees all managerial aspects of the audiovisual collections including the preservation of oral history projects. Miriam has previously taught in areas of archival preservation, collections conservation, and audiovisual collection management.
Nicki Pombier
Nicki Pombier (she/her) is an oral historian, writer, and educator. Her work in oral history is largely focused on disability, arts, and social change, with a particular interest in how oral history might center the knowledge of people who communicate in ways that challenge traditional approaches to the interview. She has worked as an oral history artist with the Institute on Disabilities at Temple University since 2013 on a range of public history projects about the intellectual disability rights movement, most recently File/Life: We Remember Stories of Pennhurst. She is a Part-Time Faculty member at The New School University, where she won the 2021 Distinguished University Teaching Award, and an adjunct faculty member at the Oral History Master of Arts program at Columbia University, of which she is an alum.
Oral History Consultants
Our Oral History Consultants are partnering with us to design and deliver oral history workshops for the Community Curation and Memory Workers Fellowship Program funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services.
Osnat Katz
Osnat Katz (she/they) works at the intersection of science and society. While completing her PhD in the social and cultural history of UK space science at University College London, she developed techniques to meld oral history and material culture studies, and collected the oral histories of the oldest and largest space science research institute in the UK. She has also organized talks at the Science Museum which drew thousands of attendees. In addition, Osnat has advocated for more inclusive oral history interviewing techniques and coauthored papers that reflect on strategies interviewers can use to make oral history interviewing more accessible.
Teague Schneiter
Teague Schneiter is a moving image archivist, memory worker, and strategist who has spent her career working in cultural heritage, human rights, technology, and DEI initiatives. From 2012 to 2024 Teague served as Director of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Oral History Projects department. As the initiative's founder, she was responsible for operations, people management, strategic planning, archiving and preservation, technology planning, research, cross-institutional initiatives, curation, education, development, and international outreach. Under her leadership, the project recorded over 260 oral histories in 13 languages and 11 countries; and over 1,500 legacy interviews were collected and preserved. She has facilitated and led multiple grants projects with national level funding, including co-developing an oral history project dedicated to documenting the stories of Latina/o/x and Latin American filmmakers which resulted in a richly searchable multilingual website.
Before to working at the Academy, Teague had 10 years of moving image research, curatorial, and audiovisual collection management experience, working with oral history and other cultural heritage materials in Australia, the Netherlands, and North America; for human rights organization WITNESS and indigenous media organization IsumaTV. Teague has served on the Board for the Association of Moving Image Archivists and as its Vice President, worked on initiatives related to making a more welcoming professional ecosystem, continuing education, advocacy and equity. She is the author of a report commissioned by the National Film Preservation Board on cultural equity and inclusion in the field of audiovisual archiving, and an early founder of AMIA's Pathways Fellowship, as well as its current project director. Her writing has been published in archival and media journals worldwide. Teague is a graduate of the University of Amsterdam’s MA in Preservation & Presentation of the Moving Image.