Advisory Board

Meredith P. Goins, Executive Director
World Data System International Program Office

Meredith came to the World Data System in 2022 after over a decade of experience working with state, federal, and international scientific organizations to help identify and recruit peer reviewers for their grant proposals and perform scientific writing and assessment and evaluation tasks. Previous lives included serving as public relations and development director for an environmental education institution within Great Smoky Mountains National Park, as a medical librarian for the Amputee Coalition, and heading a small-town public library in North Carolina. Meredith graduated from the University of Tennessee with a master’s in information science and from East Carolina University with a bachelor’s in communication. She is also pursuing her Ph.D. in scholarly communications from the University of Tennessee.  Her research interests include peer review as well as mapping networks of experts.

Alex May, Data Engineer
Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility (OLCF), ORNL

Alex is the data curator for Constellation, Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s (ORNL) Open Data Portal. Constellation continues to grow with a 40% increase in data for CY2022, now holding approximately 3.5 petabytes of data and 674,083 files. The largest dataset is approximately 2 petabytes, and the largest single file is 17 terabytes in size. This volume, velocity and variety of data will only continue at ORNL as Frontier, the world’s fastest supercomputer, is capable of 1.1 exaflops and can solve more than a quintillion calculations per second. Alex is helping to lead staff in OLCF’s Data Lifecycle and Technology group to meet the curatorial challenges of large, unstructured datasets whose management often requires creative and collaborative solutions. Currently he is chair of the Data Curation Network’s (DCN) Large Data Interest group, and co-chair of the Department of Energy Data (DOE) Curation Working Group.  Alex received his MLIS from Simmons College.

Robert Benson, Research Proposal Coordinator
Neutron Scattering Division, ORNL Neutron Sciences Directorate

Robert Benson (he/him) is Research Proposal Coordinator for the User Program Office in the Neutron Sciences Directorate, which supports both the Spallation Neutron Source (SNS) and High Flux Isotope Reactor (HFIR). Key components of his role in Neutron Sciences include:

• Coordinating General User proposal calls
• Supporting operation and development of the Integrated Proposal Tracking System (IPTS)
• Helping users and staff troubleshoot proposal submission issues and use of IPTS

Robert came to ORNL in 2020 after a 20 year career as academic librarian and higher education administrator. Robert holds certification as a Project Management Professional (PMP).

Connie Stovall, Director for Research Impact and Intelligence
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

Connie Stovall is the Director for Research Impact and Intelligence at Virginia Tech where she has worked since 2006. In this role she leads a team that provides institutional and industry insights via bibliometric analyses to Virginia Tech’s Office of Research & Innovation and Innovation & Partnership units, in addition to providing research and grant support to others on an ad hoc basis. She is a certified Scival user and employs other research intelligence and bibliometric tools such as Academic Analytics, Tableau, VosViewer. Her team also supplements bibliometric analyses with federal data such as NSF HERD, NIH, and IPEDS to contextualize analysis. Connie received her MLIS from The University of Alabama and a BBA from the University of North Alabama.

Dr. Leslie N. Sharp, Dean of Libraries
The Georgia Institute of Technology

Leslie N. Sharp is Dean of Libraries at Georgia Tech. Previously, she served in dual roles as interim CEO for the Library and associate vice provost for Graduate Education and Faculty Development. Sharp teaches historic preservation in the College of Design, where she formerly served as the assistant dean. Sharp holds a Ph.D. and a master's in history of technology from Tech. Her research explores the impact of technology on people and places within the framework of historic preservation, gender, and race. Sharp came to Tech from Middle Tennessee State University, where she held a joint appointment as an associate research professor for the Center for Historic Preservation and History Department. Sharp earned her bachelor's in history from the University of Georgia and her master's in history with an emphasis in historic preservation from Middle Tennessee State University.

Jon Shaw, University Librarian
Jean and Alexander Heard Libraries, Vanderbilt University

Jon Shaw is the university librarian of the Jean and Alexander Heard Libraries at Vanderbilt University. As University Librarian at Vanderbilt, Shaw serves as the leader for the Jean and Alexander Heard Libraries, comprised of ten campus libraries, including the university's Special Collections and University Archives, the Digital Commons, and the Vanderbilt Television News Archive. Focused on the libraries' ambitious growth and renewal, Shaw builds collaborative relationships with community and university stakeholders and provides strategic vision for a forward-looking library system that is engaged and aligned with the university's endeavors.

Dr. Suzie Allard, Chancellor's Professor and Board of Visitors' Professor
School of Information Sciences, The University of Tennessee

Suzie Allard is Chancellor's Professor & Board of Visitors' Professor at The University of Tennessee in the School of Information Sciences. She is also Associate Dean for Research for the College of Communication and Information (CCI) and Director of the CCI Research & Innovation Center. Allard's research on knowledge creation and disruption especially focuses on scientific data and how scientists and engineers use and communicate information. Current projects center on science data, interdisciplinary scientific work teams (particularly in terms of data sharing), scientific cyberinfrastructure, and science disinformation. Allard is or has been PI or Co-PI on grants funded by the National Science Foundation, the Institute of Museum and Libraries Services, the Department of Energy Office of Science, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, IEEE and others. She is also a member of the Board of Directors for the Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations. Allard has published numerous papers in peer-reviewed journals, spoken at venues around the world and published several book chapters. Allard received a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from California State University at Northridge, an MS in library and information sciences, and a PhD in communication from the University of Kentucky. Before being in academe, Allard was the vice president of Research Frontiers Corporation which provided creative consultation services to the entertainment industry.

Holly Mercer, Associate Dean of Libraries
The University of Tennessee

Holly Mercer is Professor and Senior Associate Dean of Libraries at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Her areas of responsibility include library collections, including their licensing, purchasing, describing, preservation, and storage; special collections including manuscripts, rare books, and university archives; library technology; and research and instructional support for many academic programs and emerging areas such as research impact, data science, and digital scholarship. She is a staunch advocate for open scholarship, having held appointments to the Open Repositories Steering Committee, HathiTrust Board of Governors, and the Path to Open Community Advisory Committee. Holly holds a master's degree from the University of South Carolina.

Jesse Henning, Manager
Library and Information Management, Argonne National Laboratory

Jesse leads the Library and Information Management group at the Argonne National Laboratory, providing support to the Laboratory’s scientific and technical information publishing, records management, research library, and enterprise information management functions. As an information professional, he has collaborated internationally in the pharmaceutical and public library spaces on projects related to library placemaking, policy creation, and search interface user experience. He holds a MLIS and MPA from Kent State University.

Miriam Blake, Manager
Research Information Services, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

Miriam Blake is the Research Information Services Manager at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL). With over 30 years of experience in libraries, she previously worked at Los Alamos National Laboratory Research Library for 16 years, starting as a software developer and repository manager before becoming the Library Director. Miriam has contributed to open tools and standards in the digital library community, serving on the boards of CrossRef, arXiv, and NISO, as well as major publisher advisory committees. She is serving on the SCOAP3 Governing Council and the North American Springer-Nature Library Advisory Board. Since joining PNNL in 2021, Miriam has promoted open access through Transformative Agreements, is helping build data management capabilities at PNNL and is leading improvements to the Information Release system to support data publishing and interlinking across research outputs.  Other interests include publication metrics and research information management. She holds an MS degree from Kent State University.