Our Team

Heather Cooper is the Project Archivist for the Reexamining Hopkins History initiative at the Chesney Archives. Her work focuses on processing personal papers and institutional records that are relevant for studying histories of race and racism within Johns Hopkins Medicine, Nursing, and Public Health.

Heather has BA in History and English Literature from San Francisco State University. She has a PhD in history, with an emphasis in African American history; an MA in Library and Information Science; a Graduate Certificate in Gender, Women’s, and Sexuality Studies; and a Public Digital Humanities Certificate, all from the University of Iowa. Her past positions include being an Archives Assistant and Graduate Research Assistant at the Iowa Women’s Archives at the University of Iowa, as well as being a Visiting Assistant Professor in History and Gender, Women’s, and Sexuality Studies at the University of Iowa.

Heather is a co-organizer and founding member of the Iowa Colored Conventions Project, the first state satellite of the National Colored Conventions Project. She is a member of the Society of American Archivists, the Association for the Study of African American Life and History, and the African American Intellectual History Society.

Allison Fischbach is the Digital Archivist at the Chesney Archives. She ensures preservation and access to born-digital documents, data sets, web content, and email. She also develops policies and workflows for managing digital content and fulfilling reference requests for digital materials.

Allison has a BA from Washington College, Maryland, and an MLIS from the University of Maryland. She has previously served as Research and Archives Associate for the Albert S. Cook Library at Towson University and as Collection Maintenance and Preservation Technician for the Decker Library at the Maryland Institute College of Art.

Allison is a member of the Society of American Archivists where she serves on the Web Archiving Steering Committee and a member of the Mid-Atlantic Regional Archives Conference as a Maryland Caucus Representative.

Kate Ugarte is the Administrative Manager of the Chesney Archives. She manages all budgetary processes, assists in the development and implementation of archives policies and procedures, and administers human resources policies, programs, and practices. Kate serves as the Secretary to the Privacy Board of the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions and serves on the archives’ website management team.

Kate has a BA from Wellesley College. Her past positions include Administrative Office Manager for Korn/Ferry International in Boston, Office Manager for Oberon Software in Cambridge, and as Retail Manager for Jones Family Farms in Shelton, Connecticut.

Natalie Elder is the Curator of Cultural Properties at the Chesney Archives. She manages the art and artifacts by assessing, cataloging, and making available the materials in the collection. She also curates exhibitions for Johns Hopkins Medicine, Nursing, and Public Health and serves on the archives’ website management team.

Natalie has BA from Tulane University and an MA from The George Washington University. Her previous positions include Collections Manager at History Colorado, the Colorado State Historical Society; and Collections Manager and Curator at the National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution.

Natalie is a member of Librarians, Archivists, and Museum Professionals in the History of the Health Sciences.

Publications

• de Bie, Melissa, Natalie Elder, and Bridget O’Toole. “Classic Toys from the History Colorado Collection.” Heritage May/June 2015: 16-21.
• Elder, Natalie. “Depicting Camp Life” and “Designating Flags” in Smithsonian Civil War: Inside the National Collection, edited by Neil Kagan. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Books, 2013.

Andy Harrison is the Cultural Properties Archivist and Reference Coordinator at the Chesney Archives. He is responsible for overseeing incoming reference requests, coordinating student assistants working reference services, and assigning incoming requests. With the Curator for Cultural Properties, he manages the art and artifacts collections. These duties include exhibition, conservation, cataloguing, and storage of the collections. He also serves as one of the administrators for the Chesney Archives’ archival management system.

Andy has a BS from Ball State University and an MS with a certificate in museum studies from the University of South Carolina. His past positions include Assistant Archivist at the Baltimore Museum of Industry, Reference Archivist at the South Carolina State Archives, Archival Assistant at McKissick Museum of the University of South Carolina, and summer intern at the Indiana Historical Society. He has served as an archival consultant for the Jewish Museum of Maryland and a Pennsylvania historical society.

Andy is a member of the Society of American Archivists and the Mid-Atlantic Regional Archives Conference. He also serves as a member of the Collections Committee of the Jewish Museum of Maryland.

Tim Wisniewski is the Visual Materials Archivist for the Chesney Archives. He manages analog and digital photograph and audiovisual collections, including their processing, cataloging, and digitization. He also handles reference and permission requests related to the photograph and audiovisual collections. Tim preserves web content such as institutional websites, online videos, and podcasts, and serves on the archives’ website management team.

Tim has a BFA from Maryland Institute College of Art and MLIS from the University of Pittsburgh. His past positions include Preservation Assistant at the University of Pittsburgh Library Service Center and intern processing film collections at the Bulgarian-Macedonian National Educational and Cultural Center in Pittsburgh. He has also previously worked as a photographic darkroom technician and a hospital film librarian.

Tim is a member of the Association of Moving Image Archivists, the Society of American Archivists, and the Association of Recorded Sound Collections.

Diane Abeloff volunteers at the Chesney Archives identifying and cataloguing illustrations from the Leon Schlossberg collection. She has also processed artwork appearing in publications and presentations of surgeon Patrick Walsh. She has also been organizing sketches and finished work by medical illustrator James Didusch and transcribing diaries written by William H. Welch.

Diane received a Master of Art as Applied to Medicine from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and was Assistant to the Director of the Department of Art As Applied to Medicine from 1967 to 1968. She had been a member of the Association of Medical Illustrators for many years. Currently, she is a member of the Baltimore Women’s Giving Circle.

Agnes Brooker volunteers with the Chesney Archives helping to identify and sort the surgical instrument collection. She also works with other artifacts in the collection, such as medicine kits and blood pressure equipment.

Agnes was a Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist for 42 years at The Johns Hopkins Hospital. She was the hospital’s Chief Nurse Anesthetist from 2001 to 2007 and also taught anesthesiology for the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

Elizabeth Peterson volunteers at the Chesney Archives assisting with the processing and description of personal paper collections, including researching and writing biographical notes. She has done transcription work with the diaries of William Welch and the letters of Mr. Johns Hopkins. Her previous projects included helping to process and describe the Howard Kelly personal paper collection, including abstracting his diaries.

Elizabeth has a BA from Towson University and an MAS (Master of Administration Science) from Johns Hopkins University. She was Clinical Practice Manager and Consultant at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine from 1975 to 1997.

Ann Skinner volunteers with the Chesney Archives, helping to process, describe, and index materials that have been added to the Adolf Meyer personal papers collection. She also helps transcribe diaries written by William H. Welch during his visits to China and Japan in the early twentieth century.

Ann currently serves as Senior Scientist, Department of Health Policy and Management at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, where she is a member of the Center for Health Services Outcomes Research (formerly the Health Services Research and Development Center, where she began her Johns Hopkins career). Her areas of expertise include survey research on health and mental health services access and outcomes. Since 1999, she has been a member of the School of Public Health’s Institutional Review Board (IRB), and continues in that role. She also works for the IRB as an alternate chair, and for the school’s doctorate program as an IRB consultant. Ann serves on the Privacy Board of the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions.

Ann has a BA and an MSW, both from Washington University in St. Louis.