Karla Ann Merino Nielsen

Dr. Karla Nielsen stewards the Library's archival and print holdings in literature, publishing, journalism, and the performing arts. Before joining The Huntington in 2018, Nielsen worked as curator of literature in the Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Columbia University, where she had an affiliate appointment in the Department of English & Comparative Literature. She obtained her doctorate in comparative literature (Spanish, Latin, Arabic) from the University of California at Berkeley and her M.S.L.I.S. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She has worked as an editor for academic and small press publishers, experience that continues to inform her scholarly interests in publishing studies, the interrelatedness of literary form and material format, visual poetics, and the long history of the novel. At The Huntington, she curated the exhibition "Mapping Fiction" in 2022 and is currently preparing an exhibition on 19th-century climate change awareness for Pacific Standard Time 2024.