Elsa Álvaro
Elsa Álvaro is Associate University Librarian for Collections and Access at Northwestern Libraries. Her role involves articulating organization-wide strategies and implementing solutions for the development of and access to all library collections. She will defines and advances strategies to fulfill the information resource needs of the Northwestern community and pursues innovation, efficiency and cross-institutional collaboration in discovery and delivery of scholarly materials. She develops and maximizes cooperative relationships in the context of the Big Ten Academic Alliance (BTAA) and other consortia, and builds partnerships with faculty across campus.
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 is formerly the Director of Academic Engagement for Northwestern Libraries. 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.