Daina Bouquin '11 (Photo provided)
Daina Bouquin ’11, data operations and research manager for the National Parks Conservation Association, will deliver the 2024 Phi Beta Kappa Lecture on Thursday, April 4.
The lecture, “Metadata, Meaning, and Erasure in Astronomy,” will be held in Newton 202 from 3:30–4:30 p.m. and is free and open to the public.
As the area anticipates the upcoming total eclipse on April 8, Bouquin’s talk encourages people to think about the unseen digital frameworks that allow us to comprehend the cosmos. Through a blend of historical and contemporary case studies, the lecture will highlight the use of metadata to elevate the work of 19th- and early 20th-century women astronomers and the development of citation practices for research software in modern astronomy.
Bouquin graduated from Geneseo in 2011 with a degree in English, a concentration in pre-medicine, and minors in biology and psychology. She went on to earn her master’s of science in library and information science from Syracuse University and a master’s in data science from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. Bouquin’s career has been dedicated to connecting the arts of storytelling and data analytics in the service of science, archives, and public outreach. Bouquin served as the head librarian of the Wolbach Library at the Center for Astrophysics at Harvard before moving to the National Parks Conservation Association.
Founded in 1776, Phi Beta Kappa is the nation’s oldest and most prestigious undergraduate honors society, with chapters at 286 colleges and universities nationwide. Geneseo is the only SUNY comprehensive with a Phi Beta Kappa chapter. This year, Geneseo celebrates 20 years of PBK at the College.