Lisa Kernan, 1952-2006

Lisa Devereux Kernan, librarian for film, television, and theater in the UCLA Arts Library, died of pancreatic cancer on June 25, 2006, at her home in Los Angeles. She was 53.

Kernan was born in Watertown, New York, on October 26, 1952, to Michael Kernan, a feature writer for the Washington Post for twenty-three years and a novelist, and Margot Starr Kernan, a video artist and retired professor of film studies. She earned a BA in humanities from New College in Sarasota, Florida, in 1974 and an MS in library service with honors from Columbia University in New York. She also earned an MA in film studies from San Francisco State University in 1991 and a PhD in film and television critical studies from UCLA in 2000. Her dissertation was published in 2004 by the University of Texas Press as Coming Attractions: Reading American Movie Trailers. Kernan worked for the photography department at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York while studying at Columbia. She moved to San Francisco in 1983, where she worked as the film librarian for Lucasfilm, Ltd., during 1983-85 and as a teaching assistant during 1990-91, while studying for her MA.

Kernan moved to Los Angeles in 1991 to take up a fellowship at the UCLA Film and Television Archive, and she remained as a teaching fellow at UCLA through 1996. During 1996-98 she was the chief librarian and archivist for Warner Bros. Feature Animation Studio. She returned to UCLA in 1998 as librarian for film, television, and theater in the UCLA Arts Library, the position she held at the time of her death.

Kernan is survived by her mother, Margot Starr Kernan of Bennington, Vermont; a brother, Nathan Kernan of New York; and another brother, Nicholas Kernan, sister-in-law, Mayumi, niece, Elizabeth, and nephew, James, all of Cheverly, Maryland.