Alexia Hudson-Ward is the Azariah Smith Root Director of Libraries for Oberlin College and Conservatory. Prior to assuming this role in July 2016, she was a tenured Associate Librarian at Penn State University Libraries based at the Abington College in Abington, PA. Prior to her transition into academia, she served as a marketing manager within The Coca-Cola Company’s Foodservice Division for several years. She is recipient of several awards and honors including designated as an “Emerging Leader” by the American Library Association in 2007, named one of fifty “Mover and Shakers” by Library Journal in 2008, and awarded the “Outstanding Young Alumni” award by the University of Pittsburgh’s School of Computing and Information in 2013.
Alexia is a former member of the Executive Board of the American Library Association (2012-2015) and has served on various non-profit boards of directors over the past two decades. She holds a Master of Library and Information Science from the University of Pittsburgh, a Bachelor of Arts degree in English Literature and African American Studies from Temple University, and is currently a doctoral student in the Managerial Leadership in the Information Professions program at Simmons University.
