Dr. Cleophas Ambira is the founding and current chairperson of the Kenya Association of Records Managers and Archivists (KARMA). He also works as a training manager for a leading commercial bank in East and Central Africa. In the last ten years, he has been at the heart of enhancing the records and information management profession in Kenya through KARMA.
He is an author, researcher and a solid consultant in records and archives management. He has professional qualifications in leadership development, training skills and psychometrics. He is also a trainer on performance management, leadership development, relationship management, selling skills, competence-based interviewing and facilitation skills. Dr. Ambira is also certified as a leadership trainer by Development Dimensions International (DDI), a globally renown leadership development and research organisation. He’s also trained in coaching skills by the Academy of Executive Coaching.
Professor Basma Makhlouf Shabou is the Head of Master of Information sciences and the coordinator of archival studies at Geneva School of Business Administration at University of Applied Sciences and Arts Western Switzerland. She obtained her PhD in Information Sciences from the University of Montreal. She also holds a Records management Master’s degree and a Bachelor’s in Social studies from Tunisia. She supported the national program for the management of public documents within the National Archives of Tunisia. She has contributed to the teaching and conception of various archival programs in different countries (University of Montreal; University of Sorbonne Abu Dhabi; University of Mannouba, Tunisia; University of A’Sharqiyah; University of British Columbia; University of Liverpool; University of Lausanne, Switzerland). She co-directs the DLCM 2 project, she is involved in various international projects and associations (InterPARES, PIAF, GIRA, GREGI) and expert groups in various bodies of ICA.
Cécile Fabris is in charge of the Education/Research and Youth and Sports collections at the French National Archives as of January 2019. She previously worked in a departmental archive service as an archivist-palaeographer and is a graduate of the Institut national du patrimoine. She was responsible for defining the collection policy, managing the electronic archiving system project and assisting the administrative services in the dematerialisation of procedures.
Cécile is involved with archival training activities. She is also actively associated with the ICA work, particularly with the New Professionals Programme for which she was responsible until 2018. She is currently the coordinator of the Mentoring Programme.
Nicola is the Senior Project Archivist on the Find & Connect web resource, based at the University of Melbourne in Australia and Vice-President of the Australian Society of Archivists. Nicola’s research focus is on trauma-informed archival practice, with an emphasis on raising awareness of the effects of vicarious trauma and emotional labour, and the creation of resources to support people within the archival profession.
Nicola was a recipient of the New Professional Programme in 2016, attending the Seoul Congress, and has remained actively involved in the ICA since then. She presented at the ICA Section on University and Research Institution Archives (ICA-SUV) 2017 Conference, the 2017 ALA-ICA Conference and the 2019 ICA Conference. Nicola assisted the ICA-SUV with their blog, website transfer and communications throughout 2018, and was a 2019 conference buddy to a current New Professional.
Nicola looks forward to working with the ICA community to continue to grow and integrate the New Professionals Programme to support the aims of the ICA, the archival profession, and most importantly, new archivists and recordkeepers.
This pro-bono activity is done on her free time.
Jessica Squires holds a PhD in History, with a concentration in Political Economy, from Carleton University in Canada. She is an independent scholar with several peer-reviewed publications. She manages a team of researchers and policy analysts at Library and Archives Canada. She was the ICA Programme Officer from 2017 to 2018. In addition to volunteering as FIDA Coordinator, Jessica also supports the Forum of National Archivists on a volunteer basis.