Our Team

Keith P. Chevalier is the Archivist and Head of Special Collections in the Geisel Library at Saint Anselm College. He is responsible for the Saint Anselm College Archives and the on-campus Benedictine community’s monastic archives as well as four collections of rare books and manuscripts on topics covering New England history, St. Anselm, and Franco-Americans. Prior to this appointment he worked at the University of Wisconsin. He attended graduate school at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee (English) and received a Masters of Arts in Library Studies with a Specialization in Archives and Records Administration from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He received a certificate in book production and design from Rare Book School at the University of Virginia. He is active with the New England Archivists and a member of the Standards Committee for the Society of American Archivists. 

Jacob Albert is an archivist and librarian who specializes in Franco American Studies. He has stewarded cultural materials and taught reference and archival courses in university, secondary school, and museum environments. He developed Franco American Library, an online subject bibliography in Franco American Studies, and provides web design and archival services for individuals and local nonprofit organizations. A graduate of New York University and Simmons College GSLIS, he serves as Program Manager for the Franco American Programs at the University of Maine, where he manages FADA/PFA.

Kate Bradley is the Librarian/Archivist for the French Institute at Assumption University. She worked previously at The Trustees of Reservations (Massachusetts), the Henry Morrison Flagler Museum (Palm Beach, FL), and the Calvin Coolidge Presidential Foundation (Plymouth, VT). She is on the board of Digital Commonwealth, a non-profit collaborative group that provides resources and services to support the creation, management, and dissemination of cultural heritage materials held by Massachusetts organizations.

Leslie Choquette (Ph.D., Harvard University) is Professor of History, Côté Professor of French Studies, and Director of the French Institute at Assumption University. Her diverse publications concern both modern France and the francophone presence in North America from New France to the present day. She is the author of Frenchmen into Peasants: Modernity and Tradition in the Peopling of French Canada (Harvard University Press, 1997), which won the Alfred Heggoy Book Prize of the French Colonial Historical Society in 1998 and was selected as one of nine best books on Canada by an American by the International Journal of Canadian Studies, at the request of Foreign Affairs Canada, in 2005. A French translation of the book was published by Septentrion and Les Presses de l’Université de Paris-Sorbonne in 2001. Professor Choquette was awarded the Prix du Québec from the Government of Québec in 2012 for her outstanding contribution to the field of Québec Studies.

Anna Faherty is the archivist at the Franco-American Collection. She is a graduate of Simmons University’s dual degree Master’s program in History and Archives Management. Before working at the Franco-American Collection, she worked at Fort Ticonderoga, an 18th Century military site, integral in the French and Indian War (also known as the Seven Years War), and the American Revolutionary War. Anna’s historical background is in labor and immigration in the United States from the 19th-early 20th centuries.

Patrick Lacroix is the Director of the Acadian Archives at the University of Maine at Fort Kent. After earning history degrees at Bishop’s University and Brock University in Canada, Dr. Lacroix attended the University of New Hampshire on a Fulbright scholarship. He completed his doctorate in 2017. His dissertation was published by the University Press of Kansas as John F. Kennedy and the Politics of Faith. He is also the author of “Tout nous serait possible”: Une histoire politique des Franco-Américains, 1874-1945 (Presses de l’Université Laval, 2021). Dr. Lacroix’s research on Quebec migrations and Franco-American history has appeared in many peer-reviewed journals in Canada and the United States. He has taught at UNH, Phillips Exeter Academy, and liberal arts colleges in Canada, notably offering courses on modern American history, Acadian history, and Canada–U.S. relations.

Zach Newell is the Dean of Libraries and Learning at the University of Southern Maine. 

David Nutty is former University Librarian and Director of Libraries and Interim Director of Professional and Continuing Education at the University of Southern Maine. He retired from USM in 2022. David had a 35 year career as a librarian in academic libraries, with an emphasis on administration and information technologies. Prior to USM, David was Director of Information Resources at Richmond American International University in London where he oversaw IT, libraries, administrative and academic computing. David also spent six years at George Washington University as the Associate University Librarian for Users Services and Technology and ten years at Loyola University in Chicago in several capacities, ending as the Assistant University Librarian for Public Services. David has been active in state and national library organizations. He is a member of the Maine InfoNet Board of Directors and is a past Board Chair, a member of the URSUS Library Directors Council, and is co-chair of the American Library Association’s Committee on Legislation – Telecommunications Subcommittee. As acting director of Professional and Continuing Education, he was actively involved in USM Online initiatives. His professional interests include the intersection of libraries, information with technology, and teaching and learning. He has championed the development of the Learning Commons at USM Libraries. David is also pleased to be a part of the Digital Maine initiative and its close association with the Libraries’ Digital Commons.

Susan Pinette (Ph.D., University of California – Irvine) is a scholar of Franco-Americans. Her work explores the specificities of contemporary Franco-American literature, arguing for its relevance to the broader arenas of ethnic and migration studies. She aims to show that Franco-American ethnic fiction operates within a continent-wide semiotic space not restricted to the United States but one that includes French Canada. She contextualizes her scholarship on Franco-Americans within transnational migration studies, especially as it concerns definitions of community, social class, and diaspora. She is Director of Franco American Programs and Associate Professor of Modern Languages and Literatures at The University of Maine. She has published numerous articles, developed a Franco-American Studies curriculum, received state and federal funding grants, and served as a liaison between scholars, business leaders, governments, and the public. 

Matthew Revitt is Special Collections and Maine Shared Collections Librarian at the University of Maine. Matthew splits his time between managing the Maine Shared Collections Cooperative library shared print program and overseeing the management of archival university records. Matthew has overseen a number of Special Collections digitization projects of university related materials. Before finding his way into shared print and archives, Matthew was a record manager, primarily in UK local government, earning a MSc Econ in Records Management at Aberystwyth University.

Mary Rice-DeFosse (Ph.D. in French, Yale University) is Professor of French and Francophone Studies at Bates College. Her work on the intersection of literature, social change, and identity in nineteenth-century France dovetails with her community-engaged research on the Franco-American experience in Maine, especially as Maine industrialized in the same period. She has served on the Board of Directors of the Franco-American Collection of the Lewiston-Auburn College of the University of Southern Maine (1995-2018, 2019-present) and the Board of the Gendron Franco Center in Lewiston (2011-2019). While chair of the department of French and francophone studies at Bates (2006-2011) she led an effort to integrate community-engaged learning at all levels of the curriculum. She is the co-author, with James Myall, of The Franco-Americans of Lewiston–Auburn (The History Press: 2015) based in large part on oral histories she and her students conducted in the local community. She also served as lead scholar on a permanent exhibit, funded by the Maine Humanities Council, at the Gendron Franco Center about the work of the Grey Nuns in Lewiston and co-produced, wrote, and narrated a documentary on the work of this Québecois religious order with local Franco-Americans. She was named to the Franco-American Hall of Fame by the Maine State Legislature in 2014 and received the Donald Harward Award for Service Learning Excellence from the Maine Campus Compact in 2015. She is a past president of Women in French, an international professional organization dedicated to women writers of French expression, and serves on the editorial board of Women in French Studies.

Frédéric Rondeau (Ph.D., McGill University) is Associate Professor of French and Director of the Canadian-American Center at the University of Maine.