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Elsa Alvaro

Elsa AlvaroElsa Alvaro is Director of Academic Engagement at Northwestern University Libraries. Her role involves connecting students and faculty to the Libraries’ resources and expertise. She leads the Libraries liaison program, directs campus engagement initiatives, including orientations and library programs that support the Northwestern student experience, and oversees the Information Commons and the Martin Reading Room services.

In addition, Elsa serves as liaison to Chemistry and Chemical and Biological Engineering. She specializes in chemical information, including methods for chemical structure, substructure, and reaction searching, and teaches students and researchers how to navigate the chemical literature.

Her research interests include the application of network analysis and bibliometric methods to understanding the development of scientific communities and trends in scholarly publishing.

Elsa holds a PhD in Chemistry from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid (Spain) and a MS in Library Science from Indiana University, and spent three years as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Illinois prior to joining Northwestern. She represents the Libraries on the Faculty Senate and serves as chair of the Faculty Senate Non-Tenure Eligible Committee, and is currently past-chair of the American Chemical Society Division of Chemical Information.