2017 Annual Meeting: Speakers

Sunday Keynote- 2:15-3:15pm

Dr. Michael Southam-Gerow is a professor of Psychology at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU). He serves as Associate Chair and Director of Graduate Studies for the Psychology Department at VCU. He also co-directs the Anxiety Clinic at VCU. His research focuses on the dissemination and implementation of psychological treatments for mental health problems in children and adolescents. Dr. Southam-Gerow also studies emotion processes (e.g., emotion regulation) in children and adolescents and treatment integrity. He is Associate Editor of the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, the author of dozens of scholarly papers, and is the author of Emotion regulation in children and adolescents: A Practitioner's Guide.

Tuesday Keynote- 9:30-10:30am

Dr. Beth St. Jean is an Assistant Professor in the College of Information Studies, the Assistant Director of the Information Policy and Access Center (iPAC), and an affiliate faculty member of the Horowitz Center for Health Literacy at the University of Maryland, College Park. She holds an MLS and a PhD in Information from the University of Michigan School of Information. Beth's research aims to improve people's long-term health outlooks by exploring the important interrelationships between their health-related information behaviors, their health literacy, their health-related self-efficacy, and their health behaviors. She has worked with both adults and children, most recently co-developing the NLM-funded HackHealth after-school program to help improve disadvantaged middle school students' digital health literacy skills. For more information about Beth, please see her University of Maryland bio.

MLA Update

Barbara A. Epstein, MSLS, AHIP, FMLA, is Director of the Health Sciences Library System (HSLS) at the University of Pittsburgh, and Director of the Middle Atlantic Region of the National Network of Libraries of Medicine (NN/LM MAR).  She earned an undergraduate degree from the University of Pittsburgh, followed by an MSLS at Case Western Reserve University with a specialization in health sciences libraries.

She began her career as a librarian at Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic (WPIC) in Pittsburgh, PA, rising to Library Director in 1985.  During her time at WPIC, she was a leader in professional activities related to mental health librarianship, serving as President of the Association of Mental Health Libraries.  She was a frequent instructor in MLA's continuing education program, developing and teaching courses in Mental Health Information Resources and Online Searching in Psychiatry.  In 1995, Epstein was appointed Associate Director at HSLS, and HSLS Director in 2004.  In 2011, HSLS was awarded the NLM contract to lead the NN/LM MAR. 

 Epstein has been a leader within MLA, currently serving as President and member of the Executive Committee of the Board of Directors in 2017-18.  She is a long-time member, has chaired several committees and sections, and is a Distinguished AHIP member.  She has also been active in the Association of Academic Health Sciences Libraries (AAHSL), having served on the Board of Directors and the MLA AAHSL Joint Legislative Task Force.  Other professional activities include service as a Steering Committee Member of the Group on Information Resources of the Association of American Medical Colleges.

 Epstein has an active interest in professional development for health sciences librarians, and has been Co-Principal Investigator for an NLM Planning Grant for Education and Training of Health Sciences Librarians, and Co-PI for a grant from the Institute for Museum and Library Services to develop and offer a Post-Master’s Degree Certificate in Advanced Training for Health Sciences Librarianship.  She has also been a mentor in the NLM/AAHSL Leadership Fellows Program and an instructor in the AAHSL New Directors Symposium.

Epstein has authored numerous articles, book chapters and presentations.

Monday Keynote- 8:30-9:45am

Dr. Maryrose Franko was named Executive Director of the Health Research Alliance in September 2015.  The Health Research Alliance (HRA) is a multi-national consortium of nonprofit organizations working to maximize the impact of investment in biomedical research to improve human health.  Dr. Franko’s background includes over 20 years of program management at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI), including strategic planning as well as creating, implementing, and managing over a dozen programs and initiatives. These include graduate, medical student and postdoctoral research fellowships, and an innovative and groundbreaking joint initiative with the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering at the National Institutes of Health.  Dr. Franko also ran both the graduate and undergraduate programs at HHMI’s state-of-the-art research facility, Janelia Research Campus, and created professional development opportunities for Janelia’s postdocs.

Dr. Franko received her PhD in molecular genetics from University of Southern California and did a post-doctoral fellowship at the National Institutes of Health before joining HHMI. Her collaboration to produce Making the Right Moves: A Practical Guide to Scientific Management for Postdocs and New Faculty, which was a joint effort of HHMI and Burroughs Wellcome Fund, contributed to the collaborative efforts that led to the creation of HRA. Franko was a founding board member of HRA, serving from 1995 to 2012.  She serves on many boards, including the Center for Open Science, and Northern Virginia’s new interactive science museum – the Children’s Science Center.

Tuesday Keynote- 10:30am-11:15am

Derrick Jefferson is the Communications Librarian at American University in Washington, DC. A California native, he received his MFA in Film from Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, CA, and his MLIS from Louisiana State University as a Project Recovery scholar in New Orleans, a program established to rebuild libraries while educating LIS students after the storms of 2005. His research interests include information literacy, critical thinking, and diversity and inclusion and identity issues in academic librarianship.

NNLM Update

Amanda J. Wilson is the Head, National Network Coordinating Office for NLM’s National Network of Libraries of Medicine (NNLM). The mission of the NNLM is to advance the progress of medicine and improve the public health by: 1) providing all U.S. health professionals equal access to biomedical information and, 2) improving the public's access to information, enabling them to make informed decisions about their health and healthcare. From 2006-2016, Wilson served as Director, National Transportation Library (an all-digital library), focusing on building collections, data curation, increasing awareness of NTL collections and services, and coordinating the national network of transportation libraries. She has previous experience at The Ohio State University Libraries as a Metadata Librarian. Wilson is also an adjunct professor at The Catholic University of America Department of Library and Information Science.