Awards

Bicentennial Medal - 2019

About Donald J. Waters

Donald J. Waters received a bachelor's degree in American studies from the University of Maryland, College Park, and a Ph.D. in Anthropology from Yale University.

Waters retired in 2019 after twenty years of exceptional service at the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. A senior program officer for scholarly communications, Waters specifically is credited for developing a vision that was considered ahead of many in the humanities field, and has led many partners towards the digital transformation of the cultural record, its preservation, and its dissemination. Under his guidance, the scholarly communications program has supported research libraries, cultural and academic archives, museums, universities, presses, and arts organizations as they embraced the potential of digital technologies in furthering the collective understanding of societies and cultures around the world.

Waters has co-chaired the Task Force of the Commission on Preservation and Access and the Research Libraries Group on Archiving of Digital Information, and served on the Library of Congress Section 108 Study Group. He also served on the Steering Committee of the Coalition for Networked Information, and is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In 2019, Waters was awarded Indiana University's Bicentennial Medal, in recognition of his distinguished contributions.