PJ Grier, MS, MSLIS is a health sciences librarian, archives consultant, and advocate for equitable access to information. He currently works for the Philadelphia Area Consortium of Special Collections Libraries, contributing culturally informed descriptions to a project centered on Black joy. PJ previously led digital strategy and library operations at the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine, where he also advanced inclusive initiatives and advised LGBTQ+ student leadership. As an Outreach Librarian for the National Library of Medicine, he supported 13 states and territories in improving public and clinical health information systems. Earlier, PJ directed statewide clinical and consumer health outreach at the Delaware Academy of Medicine and managed multimillion-dollar research contracts at Johnson & Johnson’s RWJ Pharmaceutical Research Institute. Community service includes roles with Lower Merion Village, Global Health Ministry, and Together for West Philadelphia.

Cassandra Stancil Gunkel, PhD is a professional folklorist. As a Teaching Artist for the PA Council on the Arts, she relies on material culture research to design residencies and curriculum for youth and adults.

Portia D. Hopkins serves as the Rice University Historian. She holds a doctorate in American Studies from the University of Maryland, College Park, a masters of arts and American studies from the University of Alabama and a bachelors of arts in history from Texas Christian University. As the 2020-2024 CLIR/DLF Postdoctoral Research Associate in Data Curation for African American Studies at Rice University she taught workshops and conducted outreach about data curation to African American community groups in Houston. As Rice Historian, Hopkins is working to integrate diverse collections into the Woodson Research center and collect Rice oral histories. She is the co-founder of the Black Houston(s) Symposium.

Haley Rose Kowal, MLIS (she/her) has worked across various community spaces since she moved to Philadelphia in 2017, from cafes to libraries to archives. She is the Operations Manager for the Justice-oriented Youth (JoY) Education Lab at Drexel University and engages in fascinating intergenerational community-driven participatory action research, as well as community archival work focused on West Philadelphia High School. Haley is an annotator for PACSCL's Black Joy & Resilience Project, and Communications Coordinator for the Delaware Valley Archivists Group. She received her Masters in Library and Information Science from Drexel University, and her Bachelor of Arts in English from Temple University, summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa.

Beth Lander, MLS is the Managing Director of the Philadelphia Area Consortium of Special Collections Libraries, Inc. (PACSCL) and is also the co-Project Investigator for Black Joy & Resilience. Lander obtained a B.A. in History from Drew University, an M.L.S. from the State University of New York at Albany, and a certification in Instructional Technology from Temple University. She has worked in various special collections settings within corporate records management, public library local history departments, and museum libraries/archives.

Jasmine Smith is a graduate of North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, where she earned a BA in History. She also holds an MA in Library and Information Science from Kent State University, with a concentration in Museum Studies. In 2017, Jasmine relocated to Philadelphia, where she has since worked in special collections. Over the past six years, she served as the Curator of African American History and Assistant Director of the Program in African American History at the Library Company of Philadelphia. Currently, Jasmine is the Project Manager for Black Joy & Resilience, a grant-funded initiative with the Philadelphia Area Consortium of Special Collections.

Dr. Synatra Smith (Project Manager for the New Jersey Black Heritage Trail, New Jersey Historical Commission) is a cultural anthropologist exploring extended reality (XR) and other digital tools to enhance special collections and archival records featuring African American art, history, and culture with the specific intention of documenting workflows that can be shared with students, cultural heritage workers, and scholars interested in building digital projects without relying on a large budget or team. She sits at the intersection of researcher; gallery, library, archives, and museum (GLAM) professional; and digital humanities practitioner. Storytelling and narrative-building are central to that experience and her goal is to identify ways to engage target user communities throughout the life of these projects through more inclusive means that integrate feedback loops and myriad learning styles.

Andrea Walls is founder and creative director of the Museum of Black Joy, whose mission is to cultivate, celebrate, commemorate and circulate stories that center Black joy. Inspired by the poets, writers and visual artists of The Harlem Renaissance and Black Arts Movement, she works across genres and mediums in a socially engaged practice. Her work has distinguished her as a Philadelphia Cultural Treasure and she is pleased that her work and scholarship have been supported by organizations she admires, including Leeway Foundation, VONA/Voices Workshops for Writers of Color; Black Public Media/MIT Open Documentary Lab, Hedgebrook Residencies for Women Authoring Change; The Colored Girls Museum; Writers Room at Drexel University; The Studio Museum of Harlem; The Women’s Mobile Museum, Eastern State Penitentiary; Mural Arts Philadelphia; and FabYouth Philly. In addition to The Museum of Black Joy, Andrea is the creator and curator of The D’Archive.com, author of the poetry chapbook, Ultraviolet Catastrophe (Thread Makes Blanket Press) and the digital web-collection, The Black Body Curve. com. She lives in and serves the Philadelphia community in her everyday practice.

Christopher D. E. Willoughby is Assistant Professor and Program Director of the African American and African Diaspora Studies Program at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. He is a historian of slavery, medicine, and the African diaspora, and is also a Visiting Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania's study Penn Medicine and the Afterlives of Slavery. Willoughby is author of Masters of Health: Racial Science and Slavery in U.S. Medical Schools (University of North Carolina Press, 2022), and he edited the book Medicine and Healing in the Age of Slavery (Louisiana State University Press, 2021). Additionally, he has published articles on the history of racism in medicine in prestigious journals including The New England Journal of Medicine, The American Journal of Public Health, and The Journal of Southern History, and he has held many prestigious fellowships, including at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Harvard University's Charles Warren Center for Studies in American History, and the Huntington Library.