2 ASU Library student employees recognized for outstanding service

Every day, ASU Library student employees engage visitors, students, faculty and staff with library services and resources, in person on all campuses and online.

Last month, two of those ASU Library student employees were honored as the fall 2025 recipients of the Tomalee Doan LibAid for Student Success Award for excellence in serving the ASU community. 

Phoenix native Autumn Towne will complete her Bachelor of Science in data science within The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences in fall 2026 and also begin an accelerated master’s degree with a concentration in Bayesian machine learning from the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering.

She began working with the Unit for Data Science and Analytics in 2024 after leading a team of peers presenting their research for the unit’s open project call, an opportunity for student groups to tackle various data science problems.

For Towne, working with the Unit for Data Science and Analytics is an opportunity to help the ASU community thrive. 

“I don’t think of the library as just a quiet building; I think of it as a place where ideas start,” Towne said. “In my unit, we help students use research and technology to get ahead, even if they’ve never coded before. Working at the ASU Library has taught me that support means creating space for possibility and trusting that students can go further than they expected when someone believes in their ideas.”

One initiative that illustrates Towne’s library leadership was the 2025 SpaceHACK for Sustainability hackathon, an annual international event that brought together more than 450 students from five continents, all working to address sustainability challenges using satellite data.

“From the beginning, Autumn took ownership of key aspects of planning and execution, demonstrating initiative, creativity and strong problem-solving skills,” said Kerri Rittschof, director of the Unit for Data Science and Analytics. “Autumn independently secured both a project and a keynote sponsor and a co-keynote speaker from NASA, demonstrating outstanding communication, collaboration and persistence. Despite budget constraints, she implemented several cost-saving and sustainability measures.”

Towne is planning to help make the 2026 SpackHACK event another success.

“Autumn has already begun outreach to potential sponsors and national universities for the next SpaceHACK and is developing an independent data science project within the unit in which to enhance her own skills and to benefit future student learners,” said Rittschof.

As one of the Tomalee Doan LibAid for Student Success Award winnters, Towne plans to invest in resources for her own academic research into traffic interaction prediction, motivated by a desire to reduce road fatalities. 

"I am determined to understand how data can capture patterns of movement, risk and attention, and I pursue data science as a way to study these questions with care and purpose," said Towne.

Justyn Wallace-Roque, the other recipient of the award, plans to graduate in 2026 with a Bachelor of Science in computational mathematical sciences from The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. He is originally from Las Vegas and began working in Hayden Library’s Makerspace in 2024.

In the Makerspace, Wallace-Roque helps patrons learn how to use equipment for the first time, welcomes patrons at the front desk and handles 3D print requests, all with a calm and helpful attitude.

Alexia Lopez-Klein, program manager at Makerspace, said, “Justyn is a dedicated and outstanding student employee, and in the year he's worked with us, he has completed over 600 3D print projects in our Ask a Librarian system that we use for processing 3D print requests.”

“In my many years of being a student supervisor at the Makerspace, I have never seen someone put in so much care and effort into their workplace,” said Lopez-Klein. “I have learned so much from him during his short amount of time here, from better ways to handle 3D print requests to ideas on how to make the space more accessible and welcoming to the entire ASU Community.”

Working at the library provides Wallace-Roque the opportunity to be a helpful resource for many students, faculty and staff, and the award will help as he continues to work to complete his degree and apply to graduate school. 

“I am proud to say I've helped so many of our Sun Devils through challenging projects, with consultations, direct assistance or managing our 3D printing queue to ensure students' projects can finish as soon as possible,” said Wallace-Roque.

“I feel incredibly lucky to have entered a job that has fulfilled my desire to help others and to be surrounded by the ASU Library community, which has done nothing but support me since I joined. What we do here is important to me and invaluable for so many students.”