Program

Jon is commercial director at OpenAthens, he has worked in publishing for over 20 years with a variety of commercial and business publishers. His career has spanned the transformation from print to digital as companies have reacted and adapted to new technology. But his belief remains that the fundamental purpose of a publisher hasn’t changed. Accessibility to accurate, intelligent, insightful information has never been more important. Trust is paramount and Jon is delighted that OpenAthens participates in establishing that trust between the publishers, libraries and the end users.

David began his role as the Discovery and Access Librarian in November of 2021. He earned his Master’s in Library and Information Sciences from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2021 and a B.A. in Philosophy and Theology from Indiana Wesleyan University in 2018. In 2024 he served as a Fulbright Specialist to a library in Uzbekistan to help modernize their library system.

Emma Wilson-Shaw worked in UK academic libraries for over 20 years, primarily in higher education but also in further education and archives & special collections. She is the e-Resource Manager for OpenAthens, working with libraries, publishers and service providers to make the user journey to content as smooth as possible. Her background includes e-resources, systems and authentication support/management, web editing, enquiry service management, and information skills training.

I joined OpenAthens in 2023 after over a decade in finance as I was looking for something much more meaningful. My role focuses on understanding customer and user challenges through external research and conversations with our account managers and service desk team. I then work with product managers and technical leads to identify possible solutions to those problems, test them with prototypes, and then work with the development teams to make the changes a reality. A big part of this is understanding the technical complexity and finding a way for users to manage it clearly and easily.

Mutali Lithole is a specialist in E-Research at the University of Johannesburg, where she focuses on Institutional Repositories (IR) and Research Data Management (RDM). In her role, she supports the university’s digital research infrastructure, ensuring effective curation and accessibility of scholarly outputs. Her responsibilities include managing the UJ Institutional Repository and providing guidance on research data practices. This role has fuelled her passion for helping researchers and postgraduate students publish and preserve their research outputs, particularly on open access platforms, to enhance their visibility and citations.