Research Presentations on the Nationality and Heritage Rooms
Saturday, March 21, 12 – 3 pm
Reception following in the Braun Room, 12th floor Cathedral of Learning
Affirmation & Erasure: Lessons from the Architecture of the Irish Room - 12:00 – 12:45 pm , Irish Room CL127
Presented by Lovemerry Illin, a December 2025 graduate of the University of Pittsburgh with a Bachelor of Arts in Architectural Studies and a minor in Studio Arts. A recipient of the Mary Campbell Cross scholarship, Lovemerry conducted extensive archival research on the Irish Nationality Room, which funded a two-month unpaid internship at a preservation architecture firm in Dublin, Ireland. Her commitment to the field was recently recognized by the Young Preservationists Association (YPA) of Pittsburgh, where she was honored with the Dan Holland Promise Award for exemplary early-career work in Historic Preservation. Lovemerry currently interns with the YPA, managing finances and event programming, and plans to pursue a Master’s degree in Historic Preservation to continue her professional development in the stewardship of the built environment.
The Czechoslovak Nationality Room Collection: Archival Sorting, Digitization, and Hidden Gems - 1:00 - 1:45pm, Czechoslovak Room CL113
Presented by Liv Beckage, a graduate student of Library and Information Science at the University of Pittsburgh. Beckage hopes to combine her professional values of information access and archival stewardship alongside her passion for language learning and love of history in order to give back to the local community of Pittsburgh’s Czechs and Slovaks. Her presentation will center the recent work she did in sorting through the Czechoslovak Nationality Room Committee Collection for future digitization at Pitt’s Archives and Special Collections.
Women of the Italian Nationality Room - 2:00 – 2:45 pm, Italian Room CL116
Angel Cramer is currently a staff member at the Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies at Pitt. She graduated in April 2025 with a History thesis entitled “Embracing an Italian (and) American Fascism: The Interwar Politics of Pittsburgh’s Italian American Prominenti, 1929–1941.” Motivated by her thesis work and prior research assistantship within the Italian Department, “Women of the Italian Nationality Room” is the fruit of further exploration of the Italian Nationality Room archives over this past summer.