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New faculty profile: Assistant Professor Bri Watson

August 2025

The Faculty of Information and Media Studies (FIMS) is pleased to announce a new full-time, tenure-track faculty appointment in Library and Information Science. Assistant Professor Bri Watson, a recent graduate of UBC’s iSchool, joined FIMS on July 1, 2025.

Professor Watson is an archivist and a historian with an MA in History & Culture and a doctorate in Library, Archival and Information Studies. They bring a broad range of research, professional work and experiences to their new role at FIMS. They anticipate teaching knowledge organization to LIS students through subject areas such as critical cataloguing, the history of sexuality, book history, digital humanities, community archiving, and related topics. They also have a particular interest in teaching at the intersection of Galleries, Libraries, Archives, Museums, and Special Collections (GLAMS) and media studies. They are currently writing a new book with the working title The Kinseys & the Myth of Sexual Revolution.

As a self-described community organizer, Watson also wants to think “about how we can develop community-based participatory action research in the London community and beyond—how we as students and researchers can bring our communities and intersections 'around the same fire,' and how we can serve these communities rather than studying them, allowing their (and our) needs to direct research goals.”

Professor Watson has co-founded several successful initiatives including the Queer Metadata Collective, Trans Metadata Collective, and the Name Change Policy Working Group, and currently sits on the editorial board for the Homosaurus, an International LGBTQ+ Linked Data Vocabulary. The Trans Metadata Collective was honoured with the Visual Resources Association’s Nancy DeLaurier Award in 2024, recognizing their distinguished achievement in the field of visual resources.

Many of their professional interests, both present and past, cross disciplines into media studies and media production, and so Watson is looking forward to participating in the FIMS model of cross-disciplinary collaboration.

“I was so excited during my interview here because I believe that the library school's location within FIMS is a great strength and that it will allow me to bring my background in history of the book and sexuality into information studies and vice versa,” they said, adding that previous experience in podcasting (AskHistorians), and even an appearance on the Conan O’Brien show in 2016 to discuss their first book and master’s thesis called Annals of Pornographie: How Porn Became Bad, provide good insight into media and production.

The move from BC to Ontario is a welcome one. As a graduate student who has endured frequent relocations, Watson says they are looking forward to putting down roots in London, developing new communities, and moving East across Canada, where the weather is more variable.

“Five years on the West coast in Vancouver made me really miss having seasons, and snow especially! I grew up in N'dakinna, not too far away from the border of what's called Quebec and New Hampshire so I have a deep attachment to the winter,” they said.

“I’m really looking forward to connecting to this amazing community and getting to know all the students, professors, and projects that are going on.”

Watson will be accompanied on this adventure by their partner, to whom Watson has made a commitment: “I promised my partner Lilo that I would learn Spanish in time for us to go down to Mexico for a second wedding—so that’s something I am planning to take on. And if anyone reading this has good tips on learning Spanish, I would gladly accept them (por favor y gracias)!”