Kimberly Hirsh

About

Kimberly Hirsh is a doctoral researcher at the School of Information and Library Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her dissertation research uses information horizon maps and semistructured interviews to investigate the information literacy practices of cosplayers. She serves as a researcher on the Equity in the Making project, a National Science Foundation-funded project exploring how the spatial arrangements of academic makerspaces impact marginalized students’ decisions about whether and how to use them. Kimberly’s responsibilities on the EITM project include collaboratively creating qualitative research instruments such as surveys and interview guides, analyzing qualitative data, and developing a theory of the defining features of academic makerspaces.

Before beginning her doctoral program, Kimberly worked as public communications specialist and managing editor for LEARN NC, a university outreach program that shared innovative teaching techniques with K-20 educators. Her work at LEARN NC was shaped by her own experiences as a high school Latin teacher and middle school librarian.

Kimberly is also a public speaker, theater and comedy producer and performer, avid reader, inveterate crafter, and eager gamer. She spends most of her time with a remarkable and small human that she grew in her uterus. She has been coding in HTML and CSS since 1996, but gets bored every time she tries to learn JavaScript. She seems to be trying to collect chronic illnesses like some sort of autoimmune Pokémon trainer. She has spent a lot of money on voice and dance lessons, possesses a vast stash of cheap acrylic yarn that fuels her crochet habit, and likes to imagine that she is both a manatee and a unicorn, but not a narwhal. She likes all kinds of media but is increasingly out-of-step with popular culture both because it is growing more fragmented and she is growing more old. She will not stop talking about Buffy the Vampire Slayer.