Kelsey Rydland

Kelsey Rydland, PhD, is Director of Operations for Academic Innovation at Northwestern Libraries, coordinating three teams. The Research Team partners with faculty and students on projects that use mixed-method and data science approaches, with a focus on expanding the use of AI and data science in social science and humanities research at Northwestern. The Data Curation Team oversees metadata, curation, digitization, and the reformatting of archival and special collections. The Development Team develops open-source software.

In addition to these responsibilities, Kelsey serves as liaison to Earth, Environmental & Planetary Sciences and as an Adjunct Professor in the McCormick School of Engineering and the School of Education and Social Policy, teaching courses in geographic information science (GIS). Kelsey holds a PhD in Public Administration from the University of Illinois Chicago, as well as an MA in Political Science and a BA in Environmental Policy from Western Washington University.

Kelsey has received more than $1 million in grant funding for research projects. This work has been published in numerous venues, including Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Journal of Urban Health, Annals of Surgery, Journal of General Internal Medicine, BMJ Open, American Journal of Public Health, and Nutrients.