AHA Board of Directors
President
Hinano Tangaro, President, 2025-2026
Hinano Tangaro is an archival consultant at the Kawaiahaʻo Church archives in Honolulu, Oʻahu, and a Systems Development Trainer for the Brigham Young University Hawaii, Kumuwaiwai Center of Sustainability. Earning degrees in Hawaiian Studies, Natural Resource and Environmental Management, and MLIS from the University of Hawaiʻi have allowed her to make meaningful contributions to archival re-description in collections that represent the Hawaiian people. She is interested in the natural world, perpetuating Hawaiian culture and perspectives, and is working towards adding to the discussion of safeguarding intangible cultural heritage through archives.
Vice-President/President-Elect
Stacy Kaleolani Naipo, Vice-President/President-Elect, 2024-2025/President, 2026-2027
Stacy was born and raised in Kane’ohe. She attended Kamehameha Schools from Kindergarten, and upon graduation made her way to the great city of Chicago where she spent 16 years. Stacy moved back home to Hawaii in 2004 and went back to school to fulfill her dream of becoming an archivist. She received her Masters Degree in Library and Information Science, at UH Manoa. Stacy is currently the Librarian/Archivist at the State Historic Preservation Department under DLNR, and previously was the archivist at the Kamehameha Schools for seven years.
Directors
Kate Marsi, Secretary, 2025-2027
Kate comes to Hawaiʻi as a transplant from the San Francisco bay area and has been proud to call Hawaiʻi home since 2021. She was awarded her MLISc from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa in 2023 and is currently the assistant archivist at Punahou School. Kate’s archival professional background before joining Punahou School includes a wide variety of special collections including: ʻUluʻUlu the Moving Image Archive of Hawaiʻi, The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation at Taliesin West, and student work with the Jean Charlot Collection. From this wide knowledge of art, architecture, film, and education she has found a professional métier in digitization and accessibility.
David Rowntree, Treasurer, 2025-2027
As the inaugural Digital Preservation Librarian at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, I am leading the library’s efforts to develop a comprehensive program to preserve and make accessible its digital collections. I organized the Digital POWRR workshop held at Hamilton Library last fall which provided digital preservation training for Hawaiian and Pacific cultural heritage professionals. Prior to this work, I was the Audiovisual Archivist at the United Nations International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals in The Hague, the Special Media Collections Archivist at Washington University in St. Louis, and worked as an independent archival media consultant (including for ʻUluʻUlu Archive at UH West Oʻahu). I have been active on several committees of the Association of Moving Image Archivists (AMIA) and am the Local Planning Committee chair for the International Association of Audiovisual and Sound Archives (IASA) conference being held in Hawaiʻi in September 2025. I earned my LIS from Simmons University in Boston.
Koa Luke, Director, 2024-2026
Koa’s birth sands are in Waiawa in Keawalauopuʻuloa (original name of Pearl Harbor, meaning “the many channels of the long hills”). His background is in political science with an emphasis on Hawaiian politics. Seeing how important archival research and repositories are to the Hawaiian community, he became an archivist to better serve his community. Koa earned his master’s degree from the Library and Information Science Program at UH Mānoa in 2014. Koa is the cataloger at ʻUluʻulu: The Henry Kuʻualoha Giugni Moving Image Archive of Hawaiʻi where he is responsible for all cataloging activities and is implementing Hawaiian culture and practice into his work. Koa’s interests are Pacific Archives, Indigenous and Pacific Science Fiction, Hawaiian ʻike (knowledge) and culture, and cataloging in a way that better reflects Indigenous knowledge systems.
Alyssa ʻĀnela Purcell, Director, 2024-2026
With a background in Hawaiian Studies and Library & Information Science, Alyssa ʻĀnela Purcell is currently a PhD student in the Indigenous Politics program at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, where she teaches as an instructor of Indigenous and Native Hawaiian politics. In the past, she worked as a graduate assistant and archivist at the Hawaiʻi State Archives. In 2023, she helped plan the International Indigenous Librarians’ Forum in Hawaiʻi. Under Professor Lilikalā Kameʻeleihiwa, she currently serves as the Project Leader for Moʻopono – the Hawaiian Ancestry Project, which provides free public access to genealogical documents that have been transcribed and translated by a team of student researchers. In her teaching, research, and community service, she aims to devise pathways to power that center Indigenous worldviews. Her mission is to transform academic and archival institutions into spaces where everyone is respected, represented, and connected.
Morgan Schmidt, Director, 2025-2027
Morgan Schmidt is currently working at the Hawaiʻi Congressional Papers Collection as an archival assistant, and will be graduating from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa Library and Information Science program this Spring 2025. Born and raised in Hawaiʻi, she is interested in becoming more knowledgeable about the islands’ various library and archival institutions and finding ways to better serve their needs. Through becoming a part of AHA’s board, she hopes to contribute to making AHA’s events, conferences, and other outreach initiatives even more accessible and fruitful sources of knowledge-sharing and community-building.