Hilary Seo has served as Dean and Interim Dean of Library Services at Iowa State University since 2019. Before this, she served the library and the university in various capacities, starting in 2003 as the Head of Preservation before becoming Associate Dean for Curation Services in 2015, providing leadership for Digital Scholarship and Initiatives, Preservation, and Special Collections and University Archives.
Through regional and national organizations, including the Greater Western Library Alliance (GWLA) and the Association for Research Libraries (ARL), she has emphasized and encouraged the advancement of librarians of color by sharing her experiences with new professionals in leadership programs, on conference panels, and through leadership roles. She serves on the GWLA Executive Board and the ARL Board of Directors and has served on several ARL committees and task forces, including the Learning Network Committee, and chaired the Leadership Fellows Program and Intensive Learning Program Task Forces.
She has prioritized initiatives in the library that center on elevating the voices and experiences of marginalized groups, including Tracing Race at Iowa State University, a digital scholarship project, and an array of oral history projects focusing on underrepresented campus communities.
Before joining Iowa State, she served as the Preservation Librarian at the Georgetown University Law Library and interned at the Getty Center for the History of Art and the Humanities in the book conservation lab. Her BA is from the University of California, Santa Barbara. Her MA in library and information science is from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her advanced training in preservation administration is from the University of Texas at Austin.