As the Strategic Research Initiatives Librarian, Courtney Shareef supports Ekstrom Library's Scholar Services, a new suite of signature services that develop collaborative and embedded relationships with campus researchers across disciplines. In addition, she serves as the librarian liaison for the UofL's College of Education and Human Development, providing faculty and students with research support and information literacy instruction.

Courtney is a member of the 2024-2025 cohort of Institute for Research Design in Librarianship scholars and a 2023-2024 ACRL Diversity Alliance resident librarian. Her current scholarly interests and pursuits include best practices in early career librarianship and library initiatives that support innovative research and resource sharing in higher education. 

Courtney joined Ekstrom Library's Research Assistance and Instruction Department from The HistoryMakers, the nation’s largest African American video oral history archive. She obtained a Master’s in Library and Information Science from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (2022), a Master's of Fine Arts in Creative Writing Fiction from Columbia College Chicago (2016), and a Bachelor's of Arts in Print Journalism from Howard University (2013).

A lover of archives and literature of all kinds, she believes literacy - including reading, media, digital, and informational - can transform lives.