Lae’l Hughes-Watkins is the University Archivist for the University of Maryland. As the  University Archivist, she is responsible for the University of Maryland collection area within Special Collections and University Archives (SCUA) and oversees reference services, collection development, donor outreach, and stewardship, outreach, and instruction activities. Collaborating with other staff, she provides input into the overall direction for accessioning, arrangement, description, cataloging, digitization, and preservation of university archives materials. From 2013-2018 she served as the UA at Kent State University, where her work included working directly with the University records management program, providing reference and instruction, and development of collections, particularly those related to Kent State’s May 4 Collection that documents the 1970 campus shootings and the Black Campus Movement, highlighting student activism.
She is the Founder of Project STAND, and her research areas focus on outreach to marginalized communities, documenting student activism within disenfranchised populations, and utilizing narratives of oppressed voices within the curricula of post-secondary education spaces.