STM People

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...

Matt Giampoala serves as the Vice President for Publications for the American Geophysical Union (AGU) where he oversees its journals, books, and preprint programs. Matt has led efforts in expanding access and engagement through open science and reproducibility initiatives and is an advocate for promoting equity and inclusion in scholarly publishing.  Matt received his PhD in...

Will Burns is the Senior Legislative Assistant for Congressman Jay Obernolte (CA-23). He is the office lead handling the Artificial Intelligence (AI) and emerging technologies (robotics, quantum, etc.) policy portfolios. Will worked closely with Rep. Obernolte during his time as Chairman of the Bipartisan Artificial Intelligence Task Force, and helped work on Task Force hearings...

Dahlia Sokolov is the Democratic Policy Director of the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology. For a decade prior to that, she served as Staff Director for the Research & Technology Subcommittee, where she played a key role in developing and shepherding through the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022, the National Artificial Intelligence...

Siva Vaidhyanathan is the Robertson Professor of Media Studies at the University of Virginia and the author of Antisocial Media: How Facebook Disconnects Us and Undermines Democracy.

Lauren Maggio, PhD, MS(LIS) is a Professor and the Director of Research in the Department of Medical Education at the University of Illinois College of Medicine. Dr. Maggio holds a PhD in Health Professions Education (HPE) from the University Medical Center Utrecht. Dr. Maggio’s research aims to understand how health professionals and learners access, evaluate, and use information, including information generated by AI, in clinical and...

Rachel Burley has been a leader in the research communications and open science space for more than 20 years. She is currently the Chief Publications Officer for the American Physical Society, publisher of the Physical Review journals. Her background in business development and publishing has pushed leading-edge trends in scientific, technical, and medical publishing and...

Dr. Alexia Hudson-Ward is Dean of the Library and University Librarian at Georgetown University, where she is the chief administrative officer of one of the world’s leading research libraries. She is also President-Elect of the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL). Her multi-sector career spanning business, higher education, and the nonprofit sector informs her...

Cathy Holland is Director of Global Publisher Business Development at Digital Science, where she works with leading publishing organizations to implement technology that supports innovation in scholarly communication. In her role, she focuses on building partnerships around tools and data solutions that help publishers improve insights, workflows, and decision-making. Prior to Digital Science, she spent...

Melissa Junior serves as Chief Publishing Officer at the American Society for Microbiology. With a background in scientific publishing focused on society-based journals and open access transitions, she provides strategic, editorial, and commercial leadership for ASM’s portfolio of peer-reviewed journals and books. Under her leadership, ASM has launched new titles, built an editorial development team...