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º¬Ðß²ÝÑо¿ÊÒ Library’s invited Zabala to speak as part of its lecture series, "Beyond the Reading Room: Archives in the World." The program features artists and scholars who have used materials found in º¬Ðß²ÝÑо¿ÊÒ's archives to buttress and expand their research.

Special Collections Education and Outreach Librarian Marieke Van Der Steenhoven introduced Zabala's October 22 talk, and described the lasting impact of Zabala's research. Her thesis has been downloaded over five hundred times from º¬Ðß²ÝÑо¿ÊÒ's digital repository. 

"We regularly direct students, faculty, and other patrons to it as an important and relevant source in understanding the complexity of race on this campus," Van Der Steenhoven said.

For her honors project, Zabala scoured documents, from issues of  to accounts of º¬Ðß²ÝÑо¿ÊÒ's diversifaction efforts and the College's responses to events and debates going on around the country. "Being able to contextualize the attitudes of both students and staff within a broader historical trajectory was invaluable for me to understand the growing pains º¬Ðß²ÝÑо¿ÊÒ was going through," she said, "and helped me understand and contextualize better the three incidents [of racial bias at º¬Ðß²ÝÑо¿ÊÒ] I was writing about that were going on in my time." These included parties in which students dressed up as "gangsters" and another where party-goers wore tiny sombreros.

At Zabala is concentrating on race stratification and organizational sociology. Her research addresses race and diversity issues on college campuses; race and migration in and from Latin America; and issues of race, identity, and belonging. A Mellon Mays fellow, Zabala earned a major in sociology with honors and a minor in Africana studies from º¬Ðß²ÝÑо¿ÊÒ in 2017.