My name is Tessa Walsh. I am a digital preservationist and software developer based in Montréal. I use she/her and they/them pronouns.

I currently work as Senior Applications and Tools Engineer at Webrecorder, where I develop and maintain free and open source web archiving tools for all.

Prior to joining Webrecorder, I was a software developer at Artefactual Systems, where I worked on the free and open source Archivematica and Access to Memory (AtoM) projects and related tools, and helped a wide range of clients meet their digital preservation, archival management, and access needs.

Before working professionally as a software developer, I developed and implemented digital preservation programs as Digital Preservation Librarian at Concordia University and Digital Archivist at the Canadian Centre for Architecture.

I also maintain several free and open source software projects that support digital preservation and curation activities, including Brunnhilde, Bulk Reviewer, and METSFlask, and enjoy software development using programming languages and frameworks like Python, Django, Flask, JavaScript, and Vue.js.

I am a recipient of a 2019 NDSA Individual Innovation Award (since renamed to NDSA Excellence Award) and was a 2018 Summer Fellow at the Library Innovation Lab at Harvard University.

Some of my interests and areas of expertise include:

• Digital architecture and design records
• Management of sensitive information in digital archives
• Environmental sustainability of digital preservation
• Digital preservation and curation workflows
• Digital forensics
• Web archiving
• Digital preservation repository system planning and design

Interviews, mentions of my work, and examples of my software in use include:

• “Catching up with past NDSA Excellence Awards Winners: Tessa Walsh”, National Digital Stewardship Alliance (NDSA) blog, 11 October 2023.
• “Spotlight: Interview with Tessa Walsh, Artefactual”, bloggERS!: The Blog of SAA’s Electronic Records Section, 26 May 2020.
• “What’s Your Set-up? Born-Digital Processing at NC State University Libraries”, Brian Dietz, bloggERS!: The Blog of SAA’s Electronic Records Section, 17 March 2020.
• “Concordia librarian wins an international award for […] innovations in digital stewardship and preservation”, Ashley Fortier and Leslie Goldstein, Concordia University News, 30 October 2019.
• “SCOPE: A digital archives access interface”, Kelly Stewart and Stefana Breitwieser, Code4Lib Journal, Issue 43, 14 February 2019.
• “Improving Workflows at UNC Libraries’ Wilson Special Collections Library”, Erica Titkemeyer and Jessica Venlet, bloggERS!: The Blog of SAA’s Electronic Records Section, 16 October 2018.
• “GVSU Scripted IR Curation in the Cloud”, Matt Schultz and Kyle Felker, bloggERS!: The Blog of SAA’s Electronic Records Section, 11 September 2018.
• “Adapting the Disk Imaging Workflow”, Lance Thomas Stuchell, Bits and Pieces: Digital Preservation and Research Data (University of Michigan Library blog), 29 May 2018.
• “Expertmeeting: Archiving Digital Architectural Heritage”, Lotte Haagsma, Het Nieuwe Instituut, April 2018.
• “Designing the Future Landscape: Digital Architecture, Design & Engineering Assets”, Aliza Leventhal, Library of Congress report, 12 March 2018.
• “The Quest for a Universal Translator for Old, Obsolete Computer Files”, Jessica Leigh Hester, Atlas Obscura, 8 March 2018.
• “Review: Archaeology of the Digital: Complexity and Convention”, Matthew Allen, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Vol. 76, No. 2, June 2017.