Hilary Seo has served as Dean and Interim Dean of the University Library at Iowa State University since 2019. She began her career at ISU in 2003 as Head of Preservation and was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure in 2009. She served as Associate Dean for Curation Services from 2015-2019, where she provided leadership for Digital Scholarship and Initiatives, Preservation, and Special Collections and University Archives.
Seo is actively involved in regional and national library organizations, including the Greater Western Library Alliance (GWLA) and the Association for Research Libraries (ARL). Through these organizations, she has championed the professional development of early and mid-career librarians by serving as a mentor and sharing her expertise through leadership programs and conference panels. She currently serves on the GWLA Executive Board and the ARL Board of Directors and has contributed to several ARL committees and task forces, including the Learning Network Committee. She has also chaired both the Leadership Fellows Program and Intensive Learning Program Task Forces.
As Dean, Seo has prioritized student-centered initiatives, including library affordable education efforts and Cyclone Support Central, which connects students to academic and campus resources and wellness activities. She has also prioritized the advancement of Iowa State's land-grant mission by promoting open access and increasing accessibility to research and scholarship produced by ISU faculty and researchers.
Prior to joining Iowa State, Seo served as Preservation Librarian at the Georgetown University Law Library and completed an internship in the book conservation lab at the Getty Center for the History of Art and the Humanities. She earned her BA from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and her MA in Library and Information Science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She completed advanced training in preservation administration at the University of Texas at Austin.