STM People

Amber Gehrts Russell is a Principal Product Manager and seasoned accessibility leader with deep experience driving inclusive, user‑centered digital experiences. Since 2022, she has led accessibility strategy at EBSCO, where she partners across product, engineering, and design organizations to advance sustainable accessibility practices at scale. With a background spanning UX design, software consulting, and program...

Andrea White is Global Research Communications Director at Elsevier, based in London, where she leads global communications and thought leadership initiatives that support Elsevier’s role within the research and scholarly publishing landscape. With more than 20 years of experience across corporate, political, and non-profit sectors, she specialises in shaping clear, strategic narratives from complex data,...

Adam Sewell is Chief Technology Officer at IOP Publishing, where he leads the organisation’s technology strategy and delivery. With over 30 years’ experience in technology, Adam has worked within publishing for most of his career, including prior senior roles at Metropolis International Group, the Copyright Licensing Agency, and Nature Publishing Group. Adam has a BEng...

Jay Patel is Head of Sales, Americas at CACTUS, where he helps publishers and professional societies adopt AI in ways that strengthen research integrity and improve how scientific content is communicated and accessed. He is also a member of the ISMPP AI Task Force and co-chair of the SSP AI Community of Interest.

Laura is a scholarly publishing consultant who has spent 15+ years in the industry, working with startups, scale-ups, and well-established businesses. These days, you can find her bringing pure science to market, helping scholarly vendors and publishers communicate their big ideas, and running the Near Missives newsletter.

Mithu Lucraft is Director of Communications & Marketing. She brings more than 20 years of experience in strategic communications and marketing across scholarly publishing, most recently as a senior consultant at TBI Communications advising academic publishers, research societies, and partner organisations. Before that, she held senior marketing roles at Springer Nature, as well as communications...

Georgiana Svensmark-Baciu is Senior Manager, Public Affairs EU, based in Brussels. She brings a strong background in publishing, open science, and strategic communications, most recently at Elsevier where she led the global launch of AI products for researchers and coordinated marketing for ScienceDirect books and journals. In her role at STM, Georgiana supports EU policy...

Jessica Berry serves as the Clerk of the Senate Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies (CJS) Appropriations Subcommittee, manages the Subcommittee staff, and handles national security matters. She has served on the Appropriations Committee for more than 14 years in several roles, returning to CJS as Clerk in July 2022 after having served as the...

Kaia Motter is Head of Academic Affairs, North America at Springer Nature where she leads outreach, advocacy, and engagement activities in the US and Canada, building relationships and collaborating with funders, institutions, and other non-profit organizations in the region. Kaia has a background in publishing, having held editorial positions at Elsevier and Wiley. In recent...

Brian A. Hitson is Director of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI) in the Office of Science.  OSTI fulfills agency-wide responsibilities to collect, preserve, and disseminate scientific and technical information emanating from DOE research and development (R&D) activities. Brian co-authored the DOE Public Access Plan, developing a strategy for implementing public access to...