Elizabeth Joffrion has joined the faculty of Western Washington University as director of heritage resources.

Joffrion will lead the WWU Libraries’ Special Collections, University Archives and Record Center, and the Center for Pacific Northwest Studies.

“We are delighted to welcome Elizabeth Joffrion back to Western. Her expertise will help us advance Heritage Resources to the benefit of both the campus and community,” said Rick Osen, interim WWU dean of libraries, in a press release.

Joffrion previously was a senior program officer at the National Endowment for the Humanities, Division of Preservation and Access, where she coordinated the Preservation Assistance Grants Program.

Before joining NEH in 2006, she was the head archivist at the Center for Pacific Northwest Studies at WWU and an affiliated faculty member in its graduate program in archives and records management.

She has held professional positions at the Smithsonian Institution, North Carolina State Archives and the Historic New Orleans Collection, and has also taught courses on archives and special collections at Catholic University in Washington, D.C. She received a master’s degree in history from the University of New Orleans and a master’s degree in library and information xcience from the University of Maryland.

“Special collections and archives are resources of distinction that are vital to teaching, learning, and research in an academic setting,” Joffrion said. “I am so pleased to return to Western and to the Bellingham community, and I look forward to developing many exciting and innovative initiatives that will promote these extraordinary collections within the university and beyond.”