Leah Powell has joined LSU Libraries as the Digital Collections Librarian. In her new role, she will spearhead efforts to assess the Libraries’ digital collections and work to ensure they are accessible, representative, and usable in a variety of ways. She will also promote the digital collections to scholars, students, and community members.

Powell says she hopes to assess the needs of those who use the digital collections and recommend ways that the Libraries' digital collections could better meet those needs. She also hopes to promote the pedagogical use of the digital collections in undergraduate and graduate classrooms.
In August 2019, Powell graduated with her PhD in English from LSU. While pursuing her PhD, Powell worked as a graduate assistant in the Digital Scholarship Lab. In this position, she helped to plan and facilitate digital humanities workshops and institutes, and she assisted in the creation of a digital edition of The Broadway Journal, a nineteenth-century magazine.

Powell is originally from Pensacola, Florida. She received her BA in English from Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama, and her MA in English from Boston College. Powell enjoys doing yoga (mostly via YouTube instructors), trying fancy espresso drinks, and reading all of the contemporary novels she had to set aside while writing her dissertation.