SMIRC Speaker Biographies

Jeanne Pavy has been an academic librarian for 30 years, and currently serves as the Scholarly Communication & Collection Development Librarian at the Earl K. Long Library, University of New Orleans. In this role she advocates for open scholarship, supports students and faculty in a range of scholarly communication issues and manages the institutional repository, ScholarWorks@UNO.

In addition to an MLS from the University of Alabama, Jeanne holds a PhD in English from Emory University. She has published and presented on a range of scholarly communication topics, including open educational resources and affordability, open access policies and collection development, and consortia and institutional repositories. She is committed to advancing open knowledge and is excited to participate in SMIRC’s 10th anniversary, having presented at the first conference in 2015.

Eleni Castro is currently the Director of Digital Ventures at Boston University Libraries and has worked on various digital initiatives in libraries for over a decade. Her work has included managing an institutional repository, advocating for open access to scholarly works and research data, as well as providing guidance on digitization, curation, preservation, and discovery of digital collections. She majored in History in her undergraduate studies and received a Master's in Library and Information Studies from McGill University in Montreal, Canada.

Sue Gardner has been the Scholarly Communications Librarian at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL) since 2008. before that she was a cataloger at UNL for a long time and worked in the library at the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium for a couple of years before that. Sue took over managing the UNL institutional repository from Paul Royster after he retired in early 2024. She just recently finished editing a biology textbook she wrote with about 80 colleagues.

Andii Johnson manages the Argo Scholar Commons, the institutional repository for the University of West Florida. With nearly two decades at the John C. Pace Library, she has been leading the repository’s development since 2017. Holding an MA in English from UWF, Andii is passionate about preserving and sharing scholarly work and the role of metadata in scholarship discovery. She asserts her job is never dull because no 2 days are ever the same. Andii is excited to be both a panelist and presenter at the 10th anniversary of the SMIRC conference.

Colleen Lyon is the Head of Scholarly Communications at the University of Texas at Austin. In this role she supports the institutional repository, Texas ScholarWorks (TSW), open access publishing, and copyright. TSW is a DSpace repository with over 115,000 items, and is hosted by Texas Digital Library.

Kaleena Rivera has nearly a decade's worth of experience administering to IRs, from day-to-day operations all the way to a full-scale migration. She currently serves as the Research Systems & Applications Librarian at Florida Gulf Coast University in Fort Myers, Florida. She is especially passionate about helping faculty navigate usage rights and advising them on showcasing their scholarship while also broadening open access efforts.

Emily Stenberg is the Repository Services Manager at Washington University in St. Louis, where she has been since 2013. Previously she worked at the University of Louisville and Indiana State University. In her current role, Emily manages institutional repository services, including posting theses and dissertations, creating new collections, and updating existing collections. She also consults on related projects and contributes to digital publishing services offered through the Libraries’ platforms. Emily has an MLS from Indiana University and an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

Anne Shelley Anne Shelley is the Digital Repository Services Unit Lead at Iowa State University. She collaborates with library staff and campus stakeholders to develop and promote the ISU Digital Repository.

Shavon Stewart, MLIS, is the Digital Services Librarian at F.D. Bluford Library, North Carolina A&T State University, where she co-manages the institutional repository and supports digital scholarship initiatives. She specializes in research data services, open access, and data literacy, helping faculty and students navigate data management, scholarly publishing, and digital preservation. With a background in data curation and research support, Shavon is passionate about empowering researchers with the skills to organize, share, and preserve their data effectively. She has also worked as a reference librarian and research assistant, supporting grant-funded projects and scholarly communication efforts.

Challen Wright (he/they) is a Metadata Librarian at the University of Nevada, Reno, who oversees metadata practices and standards for the Libraries' digital collections and institutional repository platforms. Challen is particularly interested in making metadata more inclusive and accessible through new descriptive practices, standards, and vocabularies that more accurately reflect the people and communities that are represented.

Nathan Banks is the Institutional Repository Manager at Georgia Southern University, where he oversees the university's repository, Georgia Southern Commons, and the GS Scholars platform. Nathan holds an MLIS from Valdosta State University. In his role, he is responsible for ensuring the efficient management and growth of these digital platforms, supporting the university's commitment to research dissemination and scholarly communication.

Megan Bean provides copyright information from the vantage point of Mississippi State University Libraries’ Schol Comm team. Her expertise is grounded in her JD from Duke Law, where she first fell in love with the complexity of copyright law. Megan’s perspective is further informed by her time as a big firm litigation associate in Los Angeles, as well as her nearly two decades as a professional photographer. She aims to keep her current copyright dream job aligned with thoughtful global copyright policy. In her spare time, Megan loves travel and hiking (especially combined), reading books, and seeking out live music.

Bonnie Bennet is the Discovery and Systems Manager at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. Previously, she worked in public and academic libraries in Mississippi. She holds a BA in English Literature from Mississippi College and a MLIS from the University of Alabama.

Dr. Roxanne Bourque serves as an assistant professor in the College of Education and Human Development at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. Dr. Bourque specializes in the application of creative curriculum and systemic and developmental theory in teacher preparation. Bourque's research focus is on creative expressive writing to search for the missing voices of women, young children, and families, especially those who come from marginalized populations. Dr. Bourque is awarded as a mentor for undergraduate creative scholarship with curriculum development with preservice teachers. Bourque's research includes Kinder-Cybernetic Theory (2016), Institutional Repository with cultural community connection through creative expressive writing (2021-2023), Trauma-informed practices (ACEs), The power of autoethnography in personal narratives, Advance Student Research Experiences (ASRE), including folklife education, undergraduate qualitative studies of pre-service teachers, and early childhood stories of authentic cultural living (2016-present).

Colby Cilento is the Copyright Librarian at Illinois State University, providing copyright assistance and guidance to faculty, students, and staff. She works closely with Milner Library’s Scholarly Communication Team, manages electronic theses and dissertations in partnership with the Graduate School, and assists with other initiatives in the institutional repository, ISU ReD.

Josh Cromwell is the Institutional Repository Coordinator for The University of Southern Mississippi Libraries. In this role, he oversees the operations of the university’s institutional repository, the Aquila Digital Community. Through the IR, he provides support for journal publishing, electronic theses and dissertations, event and lecture archiving, and research data. He also offers training for faculty regarding author rights, open access and other scholarly communication initiatives. He manages the Libraries’ open textbook program, which launched in Fall 2015, and is chair of the University Libraries Copyright Taskforce.

Michelle Emanuel is the head of Metadata and Digital Initiatives at the University of Mississippi, where she has worked since 2002. Among those initiatives is eGrove, UM’s institutional repository, which launched in fall 2018. She was named one of 4 "Digital Commons IR All-Stars" for the year 2022. She holds several degrees from the University of Alabama, including a BA in American studies, a PhD in French, and an MLIS.

Erica Finch is a Research & Scholarly Communication Librarian at NOSM University, where she is in the process of setting up an institutional repository from scratch. She learned the ins and outs of repository management at Utah State University, where she made Green OA a priority area for IR outreach and growth.

Cindy Gruwell is an Associate Librarian and Coordinator of Scholarly Communication at the University of West Florida. She serves as the library liaison to the College of Health. In addition to her focus on research support and instruction, she provides support and oversight for the library's institutional repository and is a creator, advocate, and user of Open Educational Resources (OER).

Christa Johnson-Perkins is the Director of Product Management for Digital Commons at Elsevier, where she focuses on providing best-in-class solutions for institutional repositories that showcase scholarship and expand their reach. With over 15 years of experience in product management and marketing, she has primarily worked in ed tech companies including Rosetta Stone, K12, The Great Courses, and most recently, the Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC). Passionate about leveraging technology to support learning and connection, she specializes in building products that bring institutions, educators, and learners together.

Elizabeth La Beaud is the head of Library Technology for The University of Southern Mississippi and the director of the Mississippi Digital Library. She holds a MLIS, a certificate in archives and special collections, the digital archives specialist certificate from the Society of American Archivists, and is a Library of Congress-trained digital preservation topical trainer. She serves on the National Digital Stewardship Alliance's (NDSA) Levels of Preservation Steering Group. Elizabeth specializes in digital preservation, project planning and implementation, and copyright as it pertains to digital collections.

Andrew Mckenna-Foster is a Product Specialist at Figshare with a background in ecology, natural history, and information science. For a decade, Andrew oversaw the operations of a small natural history museum and aquarium and directed the related research programs and biological collections. An interest in open science and data management led Andrew to the field of information science and he received a masters of library and information science, with a focus in data curation, from the University of Washington in 2020. At Figshare, Andrew focuses on helping researchers and librarians think through their open research and repository needs.

Jeffrey Mortimore is the Digital Scholarship Librarian at Georgia Southern University. Jeff oversees the Libraries' institutional repository and data management services. Jeff's current interests include technical services’ public service role; technical and public services collaboration; proactive and reactive resource troubleshooting; patron-led content creation; creation, hosting, and discovery of open educational resources; and technical services assessment.

Connor Murphy is the new Institutional Repository Manager at Utah State University. He holds an MS in Public History and an MS in Political Science from USU. He loves to work with the IR, ETDs and other scholarly communications aspects of a library, especially weird projects that most people wouldn't think belong in an IR.

Amy Reese, MSIS, MFA, is the Institutional Repository Outreach Librarian at the University of Alabama at Birmingham Libraries. She earned a Master of Library Science and Information Science from the University of Texas Austin and a Master of Fine Art in Creative Writing from the University of Notre Dame. With a background in library systems and more than 10 years of experience with repositories, Amy is poised to expand the scope of local repositories and make their content as discoverable as possible. She advocates for more inclusiveness of multimedia and other resources that fall outside traditional publishing models.

Donna Rose is Metadata Lead Librarian at University of Arkansas - Little Rock Ottenheimer Library. She has a B.A. in Sociology and Psychology from University of Arkansas at Little Rock and an M.L.I.S. from Vanderbilt University George Peabody College.

Rachel E. Scott is the associate dean for information assets at Illinois State University’s Milner Library, where she oversees the collection development, cultural heritage activities, digital scholarship and scholarly communication initiatives, and technical services. Scott recently completed a PhD in historical musicology and conducts research at the intersections of library collections and their discovery, music bibliography, and scholarly communication.

Julie E. Shedd is a Southeast Mississippi native and Southern Miss alumna (2002 & 2009). She joined Mississippi State University in 2008 as a web user experience specialist. Today, she manages MSU's institutional repository, Scholars Junction (https://scholarsjunction.msstate.edu). As part of MSU Libraries' Scholarly Communication Team, she initiates, coordinates, and champions open scholarship initiatives. She is passionate about plain language, clear documentation, kind instruction, and good books.

Lindsey Skaggs is an Assistant Professor and the Scholarly Communication Librarian at Illinois State University, where she supports open scholarship initiatives and manages the institutional repository, ISU ReD. Her research interests include user experience, open scholarship engagement and practices, and the open publishing landscape.

Zachary G. Stein is the Assistant Dean of Technical Services at Edith Garland Dupré Library, University of Louisiana at Lafayette. He initially served as the library’s Head of Special Collections from March 2018 to June 2023. He holds a Master of Science in Library and Information Science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a Doctor of Education in Educational Leadership at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. Dr. Stein directs all aspects of technical services and special collections at Edith Garland Dupré Library, including developing policies and procedures, leading meetings to discuss and coordinate activities for guiding initiatives, and serving as the primary records management officer for the University. As Head of Special Collections, he solicited and processed collections representing the south and southwest Louisiana region and performed outreach activities for the University and off-campus communities.

Chris Stewart is Discovery and Metadata Coordinator of Ottenheimer Library at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. He has a B.A. in Philosophy from Hendrix College and an M.L.I.S. from the University of Texas at Austin. His research interests include social epistemology and knowledge organization.