Emily Cukier MLIS ’20 joins WSU as science librarian

November 30, 2021

Emily Cukier MLIS ’20 is the new science librarian at Washington State University. She will give a presentation on campus titled “Data Disasters: Lessons from Notorious Mistakes in Spreadsheet History,” on December 3. 



“We have been making mistakes since we learned to write numbers,” Emily said. “We will never be mistake-free, and that’s a liberating thing. It frees people up to not strive for perfection. That said, we have to try to catch errors before they happen.”



Interested in data management since library school at Dominican University, Emily said it’s important to empower students to become data scholars and to contribute their own diverse perspectives to the scholarly conversation. With undergraduate and graduate degrees in chemistry and biochemistry, respectively, Emily has much to lend to her role as a data librarian.



Emily also worked in the private sector, first as director of chemical research for branding giant Brand Institute Inc. and then as a senior writer for biopharmaceutical research company BioCentury Inc. She was drawn to WSU partly because her father teaches at another land-grant institution, Michigan State University.



Read more: Presentation explores data disasters