2020 Speakers

John Sherer

Spangler Family Director, University of North Carolina Press

John Sherer was named the seventh director of the University of North Carolina Press in June of 2012. Prior to that, he was the publisher of Basic Books where he published numerous best-selling and award-winning authors including Douglas Hofstadter, Chris Hedges, Henry Louis Gates, Diane Ravitch, Eduardo Galeano, Thomas Sowell, Richard Florida, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Walter Mosley, Åsne Seierstad, and William F. Buckley. He had previously been the Marketing Director at Basic and has held marketing positions at Henry Holt, the Brookings Institution, and the University of North Carolina Press. John was a manager and buyer at Olsson’s Books and Records in Washington, DC for ten years.

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Katherine D. Harris

Professor of Literature & Digital Humanities, Department of English & Comparative Literature, San Jose State University

Katherine D. Harris (@triproftri on Twitter) is a Professor of Literature & Digital Humanities in the Departmentof English and Comparative Literature, San José State University, where she teaches about literature andtechnology ranging from the mechanization of the printing press in 19th-century England to current uses ofnarrative in gaming. In collaboration with co-editors with Matthew K. Gold, Rebecca Frost Davis, and JenterySayers, she is finalizing Digital Pedagogy in the Humanities , an open access digital publication being publishedwith the Modern Language Association that curates over 700 assignments, syllabi and other examples of digitalpedagogy.

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Micah Vandegrift

Open Knowledge Librarian, North Carolina State University Libraries

Micah Vandegrift’s research focuses on the evolution of policies and technologies that maximize the dissemination and impact of publicly engaged scholarship. Specifically, he is developing a concept of documentation as a form of scholarly communication, and exploring the evolving landscape of evaluating and validating new forms of scholarly output. As NC State University Libraries’ first Open Knowledge Librarian, Micah is dedicated to building programs and processes for the research and learning community to embrace a more open scholarly praxis. He is also the lead Principal Investigator for Visualizing Digital Scholarship in Libraries and Learning Spaces (Immersive Scholar) funded by a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

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Keith Webster

Dean of University Libraries, Carnegie Mellon University

Keith Webster was appointed Dean of University Libraries at Carnegie Mellon University in July 2013 and was additionally appointed as Director of Emerging and Integrative Media Initiatives in July 2015. He also has a courtesy academic appointment at the University’s H. John Heinz III College. Previously, Keith was Vice President and Director of Academic Relations and Strategy for the global publishing company John Wiley and Sons. He was formerly Dean of Libraries and University Librarian at the University of Queensland in Australia, leading one of the largest university and hospital library services in the southern hemisphere. Earlier positions include University Librarian at Victoria University in New Zealand, Head of Information Policy at HM Treasury, London, and Director of Information Services at the School of Oriental & African Studies, University of London.

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Katharine Dunn

Scholarly Communications Librarian, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Katharine Dunn works in the scholarly communications & collections strategy department in the MIT Libraries, where she’s been a librarian since 2011. She manages MIT’s open access policies and supports researchers and students around OA, author rights, copyright, and federal funder policies.

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Elaine L. Westbrooks

Vice Provost for University Libraries and University Librarian, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Since August 2017, Elaine L. Westbrooks has been the Vice Provost for University Libraries and University Librarian at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  She is responsible for the leadership and general administration of the University Libraries which includes 9 libraries with approximately 300 staff.

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Rebecca Frost Davis

Associate Vice President for Digital Learning, St. Edwards University

Philip Rusche

Associate Professor of English, University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Ed Nagelhout

Professor of Writing and Rhetoric, Assistant Department Chair, Director of Undergraduate Studies, University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Ed Nagelhout is a Professor of Writing and Rhetoric at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, where he is the Assistant Chair and Director of Undergraduate Studies in the English Department. He has co-edited three collections, published more than thirty peer-reviewed articles or book chapters, along with two open-access electronic textbooks, and presented more than one hundred papers on a variety of topics in a variety of venues. His research focuses on writing program administration, teaching in digital environments, digital composing, writing in the disciplines, and open-access literacy and learning. 

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Alexandra Dolan-Mescal

User Experience and Web Designer, Shift Design, Inc.

Alexandra  Dolan-Mescal is an artist, archivist, and user experience designer whose work aims to increase social capacity for individual empathy and cultural understanding. As the user experience designer for Documenting the Now, she employs human-centered and participatory design models to develop tools that work for and with their communities. She also teaches archival theory at the City University of New York, which informs her ethical inquiries and methodologies for archiving social media within the Documenting the Now project.

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Maureen Callahan

Sophia Smith Collection Archivist, Smith College

Maureen Callahan is the steward of the Sophia Smith Collection of Women's History at Smith College, a repository that documents the ways that people have changed the world on behalf of women and other gender minorities. In her role, she manages long-term donor relationships and collects records of current work in women's movements. Maureen had previously worked in archival technologies and technical services at Yale University, New York University, and Princeton University. She is a graduate of the University of Michigan and Bryn Mawr College.

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Samantha Fritz

Project Manager, Archives Unleashed