Katherine Ashcraft is a second-year student in the joint M.S. Library and Information Sciences/M.A. History program and a 2022-2023 REEEC FLAS fellow at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She previously earned a B.A. in History Education from the University of Illinois in Chicago. Before coming to UIUC, she taught English in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan through the Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship Program.

Katherine’s research is concerned with the history of literacy in Central Asia, particularly in Tajikistan. She is currently completing a practicum to perform original cataloging for around 200 recently acquired Uyghur-language books at the University of Illinois. Through the support of FLAS, Katherine is learning the Uyghur language, which has enabled her to create library records that will make these books accessible for the U of I and other North American Institutions.

She will return to Tajikistan in Fall 2023 through the American Councils Title VIII Combined Research and Language Training program to continue her M.A. project that documents the development of children’s literature in Central Asia. In the future, she hopes to put her languages skills into practice as an area studies librarian.