Rena Schergen received her Masters of Science in Library and Information Science from the University of Illinois with a certificate in special collections. Her undergraduate degree is in anthropology and sociology from North Central College in Naperville, Illinois. Rena has been in good standing with the Academy of Certified Archivists since 2020.

Rena has been an archivist at the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St. Louis since 2013, where she oversees collections dating back to the early 1800s. Previously, she assisted researchers in Special Collections at the University of Chicago’s Regenstein Library. Since 2015, she has also provided occasional independent archival consulting to colleagues and nonprofits, including Missouri State Psychiatric Rehabilitation Center, Good Shepherd Sisters, Visitation Monastery, Lafayette Square Neighborhood, Mallinckrodt Pharmaceuticals, Sappington-Concord Historical Society, and The Hill Neighborhood Center.

Rena is passionate about preserving and making records discoverable, as well as helping others locate and access those records. She is very involved in the archival community in order to stay abreast of professional developments and give back to the profession that has given her so much. She is an active member of several professional organizations, including the Association of St. Louis Area Archivists (ASLAA), the Association of Catholic Diocesan Archivists (ACDA), and the Midwest Archives Conference (MAC). She also serves on the archives advisory committee at the National Museum of Transportation in St. Louis.