Dr Ozden Sahin

Head of Systems and Resources at Goldsmiths, University of London

Özden Şahin (b. 1986) is the Head of Systems and Resources at the Library at Goldsmiths, University of London. She has recently co-authored with James Bulley two postdoctoral research reports entitled "What is practice research" and "How can practice research be shared?". Published in 2021, the reports were commissioned by Practice Research Advisory Group-UK and funded by Research England. Özden has extensive experience in the fields of Open Access, scholarly communications, and UK's national research assessment exercise Research Excellence Framework (REF).

Özden holds a PhD in Media and Communications from Goldsmiths, University of London. Between 2009–16, she was the Co-Editor at the Leonardo Electronic Almanac, a journal of art, science and technology published by the MIT Press. Since 2009, she has produced a number of exhibitions, conferences, events, and publications in the fields of media art and cultural studies.

Sally Connor

Senior Analyst, EY

Sally Connor is a senior analyst at in the Strategy & Transformation team at EY, working on projects that inform strategic decisions for leadership and analysing the impact of trends in Financial Services. She has worked on projects around the future of Audit, benchmarking the finance function in banks, and sizing the market potential for the firm in Europe. Prior to joining EY, Sally launched and lead a Knowledge team in a boutique consulting business and spent six years working in the M&A team at PwC, where she focused on international deal origination and business development. She is passionate about finding stories in data and the impact of her work has been diverse, producing analysis that has directly impacted large audit wins and helped construct arguments that have been used during regulatory conversations.

Susanna Barnes

Service Manager: Libraries and Archives, Lambeth Libraries

Susanna has worked in public libraries and archives for over forty years in pretty much every role and at every level - covering home visit service, children’s libraries, schools library service, specialist reference work, stock buying and adult lending. For the last seven years she has been Head of Service for Lambeth Libraries and Archives, guiding it through a challenging time to become successful and innovative. She is a member of the London Libraries Executive Board and the London Archives Partnership Board. While Head of Service in Lambeth the libraries have bucked many national trends with increases in borrowing and visits and she strongly feels that public libraries are central to helping communities and individuals thrive. She is passionate about supporting her staff to develop their full potential, encouraging them to develop new skills and be involved professionally as they are the key to libraries being successful.

Tanya Williamson

Knowledge and Evidence Specialist, Public Health England

Tanya Williamson is a Knowledge & Evidence Specialist in Knowledge & Library Services at Public Health England. Before joining PHE her background was in academic libraries, most recently working as a Faculty Librarian (Teaching & Learning) for Health & Medicine at Lancaster University. Tanya is also an Independent Information Specialist, undertaking freelance projects by arrangement.

Tanya is passionate about connecting people with information. She is interested in person-centred and collaborative approaches in libraries and education, and believes that the key to serving and influencing others is empathy.

Tanya is aiming to finally submit her Chartership application in 2021, despite graduating from Leeds Metropolitan University (now Leeds Beckett University) with a PG Diploma in Information Studies in 2006 with many good intentions.

Tavian Hunter

Library and Archive Manager, Iniva (Institute of International Visual Arts)

Tavian (she/her) is responsible for developing resources on contemporary visual art and artists of African, Asian and Latin American descent born or based in the UK, alongside running a programme of talks and reading groups in Iniva’s Research Network. Tavian has a keen interest in developing diverse library collections, reframing identity and gender in cataloguing subject headings and archival approaches to social justice. She has worked in art libraries, museums, societies, higher education institutions and received her MA in Library and Information Studies from University College London (2015). Her article ‘South Asian Collection Development at the British Museum’ was published in the Art Libraries Journal  in 2019, and she was recently a speaker at ARLIS conference (2021) and CILIP conference (2019). Tavian is also Chair of ARLIS/UK & Ireland Professional Development Committee (2021) and the member of ARLIS/UK & Ireland Equity Steering Group.

Dr Jessica Gardner

University Librarian & Director of Library Services, University of Cambridge

Dr Jessica Gardner was elected as University Librarian for Cambridge in 2017, following previous roles as the Director of Libraries at the Universities of Bristol and Exeter. Jessica’s early-to-mid career was in Special Collections, beginning at the University of Leeds in the 1990s. In April 2021, Jessica became Chair of Research Libraries UK (RLUK), and represents RLUK as a member of the International Alliance of Research Library Associations (IARLA).

Jessica is also Co-Chair of the Jisc Transitional Oversight Agreement Group; a Director of the Agency of Legal Deposit Libraries; a Curator of the Bodleian Libraries; and a Trustee of the Friends of the National Libraries and of the Sir Winston Churchill Archives Trust. She holds a PhD (in British & Commonwealth Literature), MA (in Commonwealth Literature) and BA (in English) from the University of Leeds.

Jessica is a Fellow of Selwyn College (Cambridge). She is also the University of Cambridge’s library representative for the International Alliance of Research Libraries (IARU) and one of the University’s Deputy Vice-Chancellors for ceremonial events.