A week into her fellowship, Emma Ray has already tracked down a librarian for a crash course on form books, treatises, and the layout of the fourth floor at the Kathrine R. Everett Law Library. It’s a fitting start: she’s building nearly every part of this experience around her own curiosity.
Ray is the library’s first George A. Strait Fellow, part of a national program from the American Association of Law Libraries (AALL) that supports students from underrepresented backgrounds pursuing careers in law librarianship. Ray is of Hispanic heritage, the daughter of an Argentinian mother, and grew up speaking Spanish in Miami. She’s also a graduate student at the University of North Carolina’s (UNC) School of Data and Information Sciences (SDIS), working toward a degree that blends library science with archives and records management. Her path there wasn’t a straight line.
She graduated from UNC in 2022 with a degree in Hispanic linguistics and English and comparative literature, then spent two years in Spain teaching English on a Fulbright grant. When she came home, a connection pulled her into the legal industry through a company that runs technology conferences across the country, where she spent two years handling marketing, event production, and speaker coordination. The work gave her hands-on exposure to electronic discovery and left her curious about law librarianship well before she had a name for it.
The Strait Fellowship gave her a way in, one that didn’t ask her to give up the flexibility she wanted.
“I really liked the fact that you would be able to have a mentor and be really involved with the library itself,” Ray said. “I loved how I could take the fellowship in any direction, and that’s what really pushed me to apply.”
That flexibility took shape over the second half of the summer, as Ray met with librarians at Carolina Law to help design an experience built around both her interests and the library’s ongoing projects rather than a fixed track. Ellie Campbell, a librarian at the law library, serves as her mentor and has already become a go-to resource as Ray finds her footing.
“I’ve really enjoyed learning about what I realize I don’t know,” Ray said. “That’s a huge motivating factor for me in any academic pursuit: finding out what I don’t know, continuing to explore that, and then moving on to the next thing.”
In the coming months, Ray plans to rotate through different corners of law librarianship, including public services, research, technology, and collections, before narrowing her focus. She’s drawn to the historical and archival side of the field, an interest that traces back to her undergraduate work in medieval studies and her curiosity about how legal record-keeping developed over time.
Coming back to Chapel Hill for graduate school wasn’t a hard decision. After two years abroad and several more building a career elsewhere, this university was still the place she wanted to return to.
“I cherished my undergrad experience here so much, and I knew I would be back eventually in some form,” Ray said. “You’re on campus and you can feel the energy. Everybody is working so hard, and everybody is moving toward the same or similar goals, and wants to encourage one another.”
Hosting Ray fits into a longer commitment at the library to training the next generation of the profession. The Strait Fellowship is one of two pathways into the field that Carolina Law hosts, alongside the Laura N. Gasaway Graduate Assistantship, and both give students mentorship and hands-on experience in a working law library.
“Supporting the Strait Fellowship reflects our broader commitment to excellence, inclusion, and public service,” said Caroline Osborne, executive director of the Kathrine R. Everett Law Library. “It lets us help shape the next generation of library leaders, while we gain new perspectives, ideas, and energy from the students we welcome.”
Ray graduates in 2028, and for now she’s keeping her options open, whether that leads to a law firm, academia, or another institution built around history and records. She’s letting the fellowship point the way.
Students interested in pursuing a career in law librarianship can learn more about the George A. Strait Scholarship and Fellowship. Applications for the 2027 program will open in January 2027.
https://law.unc.edu/news/2026/08/emma-ray-is-charting-her-own-path-as-carolina-laws-first-strait-fellow/
