SMIRC Speaker Biographies

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.

John Blair is the Web Services Manager for University Libraries at The University of Southern Mississippi. John holds a Bachelors of Science in Computer and Information Sciences and has over 20 years of experience in academic libraries. John specializes in web design, web accessibility, system administration, and library technology.

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 M.L.I.S., 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.

Jennie Vance is the Institutional Repository Specialist at the University of Southern Mississippi. In addition to uploading and managing repository content, over the past two and a half years she has taken on the additional responsibility of evaluating and remediating repository content to ensure it complies with federal accessibility standards. In this capacity, she has trained students to remediate files for digital accessibility compliance, presented on the subject at multiple conferences, and has published an article on web accessibility in Mississippi libraries. She has also provided digital accessibility training to university faculty who participate in the campus’s Open Textbook Initiative.

Jennifer Beamer, Ph.D., MLISc, is the Visiting Program Officer for the U.S. Repository Network with SPARC and COAR, where she convenes library and repository professionals to strengthen U.S. repository infrastructure and advance open science initiatives. She also serves as the Scholarly Communications Librarian at California State University, San Bernardino, leading programs in open access publishing, data management, institutional repositories, and open educational resources. Previously, she was Head of Scholarly Communications and Open Publishing at the Claremont Colleges Library and a Fulbright Scholar at the National Institute of Informatics in Tokyo. Her research explores scholarly communication infrastructures, cross-cultural data management models, and the intersections of open science policy and library practice.

Carly Robinson is a Senior Policy Fellow at SPARC, a non-profit membership organization advocating for open systems for research and education. She leads SPARC’s efforts to advance policies related to persistent identifiers (PIDs) and metadata standards and contributes more broadly to SPARC’s policy work on public access and open research. Prior to joining SPARC, Carly spent a decade at the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI), serving as Assistant Director for Information Products and Services. She served on the White House National Science and Technology Council’s Subcommittee on Open Science, co-chairing subgroups on both persistent identifiers and open science infrastructure. Carly has a Ph.D. and master’s degree in atmospheric chemistry from the University of Colorado, and a bachelor’s degree in applied physics from Michigan Technological University.

Julia Doelling is the Digital Initiatives Librarian at West Chester University. Her work focuses on managing the digital collections maintained by West Chester University, including digital special collections and the institutional open-access repository, West Chester University Digital Commons. She is interested in the presentation and usage of digital collections, browsability, and the ways in which physical experiences may be transformed and incorporated into digital collections.

Yoko Ferguson is the Cataloging and Metadata Librarian and Associate Professor at the University of the District of Columbia (UDC). Prior to UDC, she was a Metadata and Cataloging Librarian at George Mason University and the Chief of Cataloging and Government Documents Division at The City College of New York. Her professional and research interests include reparative cataloging and social justice in cataloging, as well as mentoring and team building in technical services.

Matthew Folse’s professional journey began in bustling kitchens, transitioning to the world of librarianship and archival work. They received their bachelor’s in history from the University of New Orleans and MLIS from Louisiana State University. They are an early career librarian whose current role is the Scholarly Communications Librarian at LSU Health Sciences Center – New Orleans. They are also liaison to the school of Public Health, co-manage LSUHSC’s institutional repository Digital Scholar, and is part of the systematic review team and data services team.

Federico Verlicchi holds a MS in Data Analytics. He is an Account Executive at 4Science with half a decade of experience supporting higher education institutions in North America. Federico has a key role in the development of DSpace custom hosting and SaaS solutions, contributing to 4Science’s leadership position in the U.S. higher-education, research, and digital library communities. Federico has proven track record of working with high-profile clients—including Ivy League institutions—from early engagement through contract execution.

Fatimah Jibril Abduldayan, PhD, CLN, MNLA is a prominent Nigerian librarian, academic leader, and advocate for open access, open science, and equitable scholarly publishing. She currently serves as the University Librarian at Nigeria Maritime University, Okerenkoko, Delta State, and is widely recognized for advancing open knowledge practices across academic institutions in Nigeria. In her role as Team Lead for LIBSENSE Nigeria, she drives national capacity-building efforts focused on open science principles, research data management (RDM), and open access policy development to ensure that research outputs are widely accessible and ethically shared. Dr. Abduldayan’s leadership reflects a commitment to amplifying African research voices in global discourse, strengthening academic self-reliance, and ensuring that students, educators, and researchers benefit from inclusive, open scholarly practices.

David Advent is a Scholarly Communication Librarian at Utah State University, focusing on copyright, open access publishing, and research impact. David helps researchers from all disciplines navigate the scholarly publishing process. He holds a MLIS from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a MA in Literature from Florida State University. Prior to working in academic libraries, David supported and developed undergraduate research programming as the Assistant Director of Florida State University’s Center for Undergraduate Research and Academic Engagement.

Ene Belleh, MBA, MLS, is the supervisor of the Arcus Library Science Team within the Department of Biomedical and Health Informatics (DBHI) at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) Research Institute. The team focuses on advancing research data organization, discovery, and sharing across the institute. In this role, Ene partners closely with investigators and study teams to support NIH data-sharing requirements and to expand CHOP Dataverse, the institution’s public-access repository powered by Harvard Dataverse. Beyond policy development and metadata strategy, Ene is deeply engaged in mentoring, collaborative problem-solving, and exploring innovative ways to bridge library science, bioinformatics, and data science across the research enterprise.

Ashley Cate is the Publishing & Open Repository Administrator at the University of Tennessee Knoxville Libraries. She holds a Master of Arts in Liberal Studies with an Archival Studies concentration degree from East Tennessee State University and will graduate with her Master of Science in Information Science degree from the University of Tennessee in May 2026. In her current role, Ashley serves as the administrator for TRACE, the University of Tennessee Knoxville’s institutional repository, and as the administrator for V.O.L. Journals, the open access journal publishing platform for the University of Tennessee.

Paul Cuomo is a dedicated Product Specialist at TDNet, a leading provider of innovative library software solutions since 2001. Joining the company in June 2020, he has played a key role in supporting libraries worldwide with cutting-edge tools that streamline research and resource management. Passionate about advancing the library and information profession, Paul Cuomo also hosts The Info-Leaders Podcast on Spotify. Through engaging interviews with library leaders, knowledge managers, and research professionals, the podcast shares stories, practical strategies, and inspiration—particularly around topics like AI adoption in library discovery and innovative resource management. With a focus on empowering libraries to transform workflows and better serve their communities, Paul Cuomo bridges technology and real-world library needs to drive meaningful impact in the information landscape.

Danielle De Jager-Loftus is Associate Professor at the University of South Dakota, and liaison to the College of Fine Arts. She manages USD’s digital library and institutional repository, as well as other digital programs. De Jager-Loftus has led presentations and published articles not only about digital initiatives, but also about collaborating with other librarians and the greater community. De Jager-Loftus has held several association positions at the local, state, national, and international level, such as IFLA Art Libraries Section, past president of the South Dakota Library Association, ALA Science/Technology section publications editor, and ACRL Digital Technologies and the Arts Committee, and is currently the ALA Councilor for the South Dakota Library Association.

Ignace Deroost is Atmire’s Sales & Marketing Director and has been with the company since 2014. In his role, he works closely with Atmire’s research and development team to translate emerging challenges into practical solutions. He brings over a decade of experience connecting the needs of research institutions with innovative technology.

Nicole Feldman is a Digital Archivist within the Department of Biomedical & Health Informatics at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) Research Institute. Feldman collaborates with PIs, core service providers, and research programs to manage the archiving and preservation of CHOP research data. She also administers the underlying tools and workflows that facilitate those offerings. Working closely with bioinformaticians and subject matter experts, she is the main project owner of omics data assets archiving.

David Gaither is the Scholarly Communications and Analytics Librarian for Noel Memorial Library at Louisiana State University Shreveport. He handles all administrative aspects of LSUS's relatively young Scholarly Repository and was an essential member of the implementation team. A 2026 Open Education Research Fellow, David also leads campus initiatives related to the adoption and creation of open educational resources. Since 2019, LSU Shreveport has led all public universities in Louisiana in textbook cost savings provided to students due to the adoption of open educational resources.

Betsua Garcia-Trujillo is the Institutional Repository Technician for the University of Nevada, Las Vegas Libraries. She holds a BS in Biological Sciences and a BA in Psychology. She focuses on the day-to-day management of the repository, which includes processing submissions, remediating metadata, and maintaining related workflows. She also supervises four student assistants for the department who work on many projects, including tasks related to the institutional repository.

Kevin Greene is the Buford “Buff” Blount Professor of Military History and an associate professor of history in the School of Humanities at the University of Southern Mississippi. Dr. Greene is the Director of the Center for Oral History and Cultural Heritage, Founding Co-Director of the Center for the Study of the National Guard, and a fellow in the Dale Center for the Study of War and Society. He teaches courses in Oral History, American History, African American History, Urban History, World History, Research Methodology, Military History, and Cultural History. He is the author of The Invention and Reinvention of Big Bill Broonzy, a cultural and intellectual examination of William “Big Bill” Broonzy with the University of North Carolina Press for their catalogue in African American Studies. Dr. Greene has published his work in the Journal of Urban History, The Journal of Southern History, the Journal of American Ethnic History, the Journal of Mississippi History, The Journal of Military History, and The New York Times.

Arran Griffith is the Program Manager for Fedora – the open-source repository platform focused on long-term digital preservation. As the Program Manager, she is responsible for uniting users and delivering on the vision and priorities set for the Fedora community. She acts as a strategic liaison between governance groups and community stakeholders to oversee that key program objectives are being met and that continued program growth is achieved. She previously served as Community Outreach Coordinator for the Fedora Program before taking on the full-time role as Program Manager in May 2022. Along with her responsibilities for Fedora, Arran is also one of the founding stakeholders of the AI Discussions Working Group and is the lead facilitator of the Solutions Showcase Series, hosted by the working group.

Elizabeth Holt has recently come to academic librarianship after a career in archaeology and art restoration. She enjoys working with collections as the institutional repository manager and the head of digital projects at LSU Health New Orleans Libraries. Her current projects include building digital archives for two historic institutional collections (the LSU Health New Orleans Hurricane Katrina Archive and the LSU School of Medicine US Army 64th General Hospital Collection) and providing guidance on accessibility compliance for electronic documents. She has 1 child, 2 rabbits and 3 cats, and enjoys escaping New Orleans summers as often and for as long as possible.

Jessica Hornbuckle, Discovery Services Librarian at Berry College, provides library-wide leadership to sustain an intentional library presence, with a focus on user-centered usability to deliver new services (such as our new IR), enhance the user experience, and improve operational efficiency across platforms. Over her 11 years at Berry College, she became an accidental systems librarian and supervisor. Recently, she began exploring new opportunities in institutional repositories.

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 educational technology 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.

Jennae Luecke is the Data Catalog and Discovery Librarian within the Department of Biomedical & Health Informatics at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) Research Institute. She is the product owner of CHOP's Enterprise Data Catalog for research related content, collaborating with her partners in the Digital and Technology Services department for the management and governance of the overall application.

Aaron McCullough is the Product Director for Repositories at Paradigm Publishing Services. With 15 years of experience in digital solutions and higher education, Aaron McCollough brings expertise in scholarly communication, software product management, and research infrastructure to Paradigm. Having worked at institutions like the University of Michigan, the University of Illinois, and George Mason University, he understands both the importance of academic work and the responsibility to make it more accessible, sustainable, and impactful.

Andrew Mckenna-Foster is a product specialist at Digital Science with a career rooted in the intersection of information management and active scientific research. At Digital Science, Andrew connects innovative data and research platforms with academic use cases and helps research institutions think through their open research needs.

Connor Murphy is the Institutional Repository Manager at Utah State University Libraries and is entering his third year in this role. He has a background in Public History and Political Science and hopes to soon start an MLIS to round out his skillset. With 7 years experience in academic archives and libraries, Connor has worked on everything from archival processing to digital exhibits.

Gerald Natal’s career in libraries spans thirty-seven years in a variety of roles and environments. He presently serves as Associate Professor and Health and Human Services Librarian for The University of Toledo Libraries. Current research interests include various aspects of library outreach, among them promotion of institutional repositories as tools for teaching and learning.

Allison Olsen has over a decade of experience in digital records management, specializing in digital assets and technical digital archival collections. As a Digital Archivist at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Allison partners with research teams to ensure proper archiving and preservation of research data, facilitates NIH-compliant data sharing, and works on cross-functional data management initiatives. When she's not wrangling research data, Allison enjoys life in Wilmington, Delaware with her two dogs and two sons.

Julianna Pakstis works as part of the Arcus initiative to describe archived research data from across the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP). She designs and produces metadata records and schemas for collections in the Arcus Archives. She oversees the development and upkeep of the team’s custom tool for interacting with those metadata files. Julie is interested in emerging standards for research data and innovative techniques for efficient, accurate, and automated metadata application.

Emma Powell (she/her) is an Archivist and Assistant Librarian at Elon University in Elon, NC. In this role, she balances work in the archives with managing Elon University’s new institutional repository. She oversees the day-to-day operations of the IR, including development and implementation processes. In the archive, she works on processing and archival metadata, digitization workflows, outreach, and instruction. She holds an MSLIS and Archives advanced certificate from Pratt Institute, and a BA in Media, Culture, and the Arts from The King’s College.

Yoga Raghavaraju is a visionary product leader and Director of Digital Commons, guiding the strategy and roadmap for the future of institutional repositories. She leads the development of platform ecosystems that enable seamless, inclusive, and impactful knowledge dissemination for researchers, faculty, and students. Her work advances open scholarship, long-term preservation, and broad access to scholarly content.

Whitney Russell serves as the Open Scholarship Librarian at Augusta University, guiding campuswide efforts in open educational resources, open access, and digital scholarship infrastructure, including management of Scholarly Commons. She holds an MLIS from the University of Southern Mississippi and a B.A. in History from Mississippi University for Women.

Arjun Sabharwal is a Professor and Digital Initiatives Librarian at the University of Toledo. His areas of responsibilities include digitizing manuscript collections and archival records, developing virtual exhibitions at the Ward M. Canaday Center for Special Collections, managing the University of Toledo Digital Repository, and curating the Toledo's Attic Virtual Museum. His research interests focus on digital curation and the digital humanities.

Michelle Shannon is the Institutional Repository Manager at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas Libraries. She holds a BA and MA in history, a graduate certificate in Archives & Records Management, and an MLIS. Her dedication to the principles of open access is reflected throughout her career working in archives, special collections, and scholarly communication. In her free time, Michelle enjoys birding, reading sci-fi, and watching sports.

Jason Smith (he/him) is the Scholarly Communications Instruction Librarian and University Archivist at Lewis University in Romeoville, IL. He graduated from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) in 2022 with a Bachelor of Arts in Liberal Arts and Sciences (History/Cognitive Psychology, Minor in Music) in May 2022. He graduated with a Master of Arts in History and an MSLIS from UIUC in May 2024. His primary responsibility at Lewis consists of overseeing all of the operations of the institutional repository and the Archives, in which he operates as the sole Archivist. He was responsible for the building and implementation of Lewis University's Institutional Repository with the assistance of a steering committee that he co-chairs. He also assists in community outreach and marketing for the Archives and the Library. In addition, he serves as an Adjunct Faculty member in Lewis’ History Department.

Martha Tizhe is a dedicated Research Consultant with a strong passion for knowledge development, scholarly advancement, and evidence-based practice. In her professional role, she serves as a special and research assistant to the university librarian of Nigeria Maritime University, Delta State, where she contributes to strategic planning, information management, and the enhancement of library services. Her work supports institutional goals by ensuring effective organisation, research support, and the promotion of modern information practices within the academic environment. Overall, she is driven by a strong sense of purpose in research, education, information management, and mental health advocacy, consistently demonstrating professionalism, compassion, and a commitment to positive societal impact.

Nicole Webber is a scholarly communication librarian and associate professor at the University of Northern Colorado where she manages the university’s institutional repository, UNCOpen. Her research interests include scholarly publishing trends, faculty development, and the preservation of research and research data. She earned her MS in Library & Information Science from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

Challen Wright is a Metadata Librarian at the University of Nevada, Reno. They primarily work with the university's Digital Collections and Institutional Repository by ensuring high-quality metadata standards and leading metadata migration projects. They are also interested in metadata remediation, reparative description, and ethical AI usage in academic libraries.