Liz Strong oversaw the execution of the Obama Presidency Oral History since its start in 2019. She ensured the secure stewardship of the interviews throughout the years of fieldwork and their successful transfer to the archive. She acted as a central point person for hundreds of narrators, interviewers, and other stakeholders with the project, advocating for their concerns and interests during each stage, from research and design through to public release. She reviewed the content of interviews in order to offer feedback and support to interviewers throughout their work, and to facilitate conversations among the interviewers and PI to help them achieve a unified approach to their oral history fieldwork. Liz also contributed to research, and she recorded interviews with 8 people on subjects of LGBTQ+ rights, clemency, disaster recovery, and more. Liz also provided material support and guidance to partner research teams at the University of Chicago and University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa.
Prior to joining Incite in 2019, Liz spent two years as Project Coordinator for the Muslims in Brooklyn Public History Project at the Center for Brooklyn History (formerly the Brooklyn Historical Society). From 2015 to 2019, Liz was the Oral History Program Manager for the New York Preservation Archive Project (NYPAP), where she led several oral history initiatives on the history of the preservation movement in New York City. She is co-chair of the Oral History Association’s (OHA) Advocacy Committee and previously served on the OHA’s task force to author their 2018 Principles & Best Practices. As a freelance oral historian and personal historian, beginning in 2010, she worked with a variety of clients, including the Washington Department of Commerce and the University of Arizona Steward Observatory.
She received an MA in Oral History from Columbia in 2015 and a BA in Narrative Arts from Oberlin College in 2009. Her article in the Oral History Review, “Shifting Focus: Interviewers Share Advice on Protecting Themselves from Harm”, focuses on oral historians sustaining themselves through challenging work.
