Opportunities

The Archives, Memory, and Preservation Lab is growing, and we are recruiting people at all levels of experience to join the lab. Please see the research page for information about the types of current projects we have going in the lab that you might be interested in, or feel free to suggest a related topic of your own.

For graduates

Interested in archives, memory, or historical preservation? Work with a collection you’d like to help protect, or share with new audiences? Get in touch! We’re always looking for opportunities to collaborate.

For undergraduates

AMPL is always looking for interested and motivated undergraduates to join the team. Undergraduates have the opportunity to be involved in all aspects of our research, including archival digitization and description, the development and testing of tools and methods, the production of public-facing narratives to bring historical research to broad audiences, and even helping formulate new research questions.

Undergrad research assistants are expected to work for approximately 3-6 hours per week in the lab (or remotely, depending on the project), which includes attending a weekly lab meeting. Research assistants can receive course credit. Given the amount of training involved, for some projects we require a two-quarter commitment. We hope research assistants will want to participate even longer, and start their own independent projects!

Details of individual roles we are looking for are detailed below, as well as on the URCA Undergraduate Research Directory.

Cataloging Historical Materials from colonial Tunja, Colombia

Want to learn to read and describe 16th and 17th-century manuscripts from Latin America? We are currently reviewing thousands of images of archival materials from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries held in the city of Tunja, in the central highlands of Colombia. This material was produced by scribes and notaries on behalf of broad sectors of the very diverse population of this region, who went to them to record everything from contracts and business deals to wedding arrangements and wills, and provides a fascinating window into everyday life in a colonial Latin American city. However, in order to publish them and make them available to researchers we need to go through them and describe the documents, creating catalogs and finding aids. This is where we need your help! Learn more about the position in the URCA Directory (UCSB login required), and about the broader project here.