Contacts

Marianne is a research communications assistant and JoRD Project Officer with the CRC. Marianne studied Art and Design at Cardiff and then textile design at DMU. Her early jobs were in the retail trade, then in the world of Education. She accidentally became a part-time library assistant while looking for a full time teaching post: an event that became life changing. Qualifying as a librarian in 2007, completing an MSc (Econ) in Information and Library Studies from Aberystwyth in 2008, she went on to conduct doctoral research about children's mobile libraries. The resulting PhD in Information Science was awarded in September 2012 at Loughborough University.

As well as a passion for reading and learning, Marianne is a keen organic gardener, artist and crafts person.

Bill Hubbard is the Director of the Centre for Research Communications (CRC), incorporating the work of SHERPA. Bill has a background in innovative developments of ICT in higher education and research and associated change management; in particular in work aiming to embed ICT into university functions and working practices. Previous work has been in the use of Expert Systems to support decision making, designing information systems for managing research funding and a number of years working with the introduction of multimedia into university teaching and learning. Bill's commercial experience includes three years as a unit head, managing projects in virtual reality applications for communications, installations and broadcast, specialising in virtual heritage environments. Before this he worked as a senior lecturer at De Montfort University, Leicester, leading a BA degree course in Multimedia Design and has been an honorary lecturer in the School of Computing Sciences at the University of East Anglia.

Bill speaks widely on innovation in communication and research, including open access and related issues - repository network development, institutional integration, cultural change, IPR and policy development. He is also involved in archaeological and heritage applications of new media and sits on the Channel 4 Award jury for new media archaeology.

More on Bill's personal web page >>

Azhar is the CRC Open Access Services Co-ordinator, based at the University of Nottingham. Prior to joining CRC Azhar has held a variety of positions in Higher Education and the NHS ranging from roles as Project Manager to Operations Manager. Azhar has extensive experience in the field of institutional research repositories and academic research processes and was previously Project Manager responsible for the development of an Open Access Research Repository for the University of Salford.

Azhar has a degree in Consumer Law and postgraduate qualifications in Information Science and Project Management.

Outside work, Azhar has a keen interest in the field of Open Access, OER's, Digital Libraries and Open Source Learning Technologies.

Prior to joining the CRC Emma has worked in a number of HE institutions within libraries, in research (the History to Herstory project and 8000 Years of Wisdom), and as a university lecturer in American literature and history. Emma has a degree in English and American Literature, an MA in American Cultural Studies (Nottingham) and a Pg Cert. in Teaching and Course Design in HigherEducation.

Outside of work Emma has a keen interest in reading, researching, and writing.

Peter Millington gained a BSc in Information Science from Leeds Polytechnic, and went on to run the technical library and information unit for the Central Electricity Generating Board, Midlands Region - now E.On. This role also included managing the publication of internal scientfic reports. He later moved to Fisons Pharmaceuticals, Loughborough - later AstraZeneca R&D Charnwood - to develop bibliographic and chemical databases to help expedite the drug discovery process.

On leaving AstraZeneca, Peter completed a PhD on traditional drama at the University of Sheffield, so he has first hand experience of the needs of practitioners in both science & technology, and the arts & humanities.

Tom Parsons joined the CRC in April 2012 and is the Project Manager for the ADMIRe Research Data Management project. Tom previously worked in the aerospace and pharmaceutical industries, working as a consultant in the fields of Knowledge and Information Management. His work covering a variety of projects including lessons learnt, long-term data retention and research.

Tom has a PhD in Knowledge Management from Loughborough University and an MSc in Information Systems from The University of Sheffield.

Stephen Pinfield is External Adviser to the Centre for Research Communications, based at the University of Sheffield, where he is Senior Lecturer in the Information School. Previous to this he was Chief Information Officer at the University of Nottingham and Director of SHERPA. He has been active for a number of years in the areas of open access, open data and open educational resources. He speaks and publishes widely on these and related subjects.

Stephen has a degree in History from the University of Cambridge, and a Master's degree from University College London in Library and Information Studies. He has a PhD from Nottingham University Business School on open-access publishing and dissemination.

More on the Information School website >>

Nancy Pontika joined the CRC team in January 2012 to work on the Repository Support Project. Nancy has a thorough background in Open Access information, having worked as an Assistant Editor and Project Manager with the Open Access Directory. Previous to this, Nancy worked as a library director in Athens for the Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy

Nancy has taught on courses for information professionals, as well as providing workshops and one-to-one consultancy services. Nancy recently gained a PhD in Information Science with a specialism in Open Access and the effects of public access policies, from Simmons College, Boston MA.

Jane H Smith is the Services Development Officer of SHERPA, based at the University of Nottingham. She has previously been employed as an Information Scientist with a leading biomedical charity, where she worked on a busy science enquiry service. In this role Jane represented her employers at meetings for the Consortium of Independent Health Information Libraries in London (CHILL). Jane is a Chartered member of CILIP.

Prior to employment, Jane studied Immunology at University of Edinburgh, followed by Electronic Information Management at Robert Gordon University.

Jane enjoys both film and digital photography, and crafting.

Caroline Williams is the Director of Libraries, Research and Learning Resources at the University of Nottingham. She has a BA in English Language and Literature, an MA in Library and Information Studies and an MBA. Whilst studying for her MBA Caroline worked at the Open University and Manchester Metropolitan University and became increasingly interested in information technology and management and leadership practice. These interests developed and in 2004 Caroline became Executive Director of Intute (formerly the RDN) at the national data centre Mimas at the University of Manchester, then in 2008 she was appointed to the role of Mimas Deputy Director. It was in these positions that Caroline gained experience of leading organisational transition and change. She became an MSP Advanced Practitioner in 2006, and in 2007 was the winner of the Jason Farradane Award in recognition of outstanding work in the field of information science.

Laurian Williamson joined the Centre for Research Communications (CRC) ADMIRe project in May 2012 to work as a Service Developer (Research Data Management) for the University of Nottingham research data management project (ADMIRe).

Laurian previously worked as an Open Access Advisor for the Repositories Support Project (RSP) and prior to that as the health and life sciences Service Co-ordinator for the national academic information service Intute: Health and Life Sciences.

Laurian has previously worked in both academic and public libraries and as a project officer for the JISC funded projects OMNI (Organising Medical Networked Information) and BIOME. Laurian is the author of three (microbiology, veterinary medicine, and dentistry & oral health) of the Virtual Training Suite free Internet tutorials which aimed to assist university students develop and enhance their Internet research skills.

Laurian has a degree in psychology from the University of Natal (Durban) and a PGCert in Library and Information Studies (Robert Gordon University). She is currently studying towards an MSc in Library and Information Studies, as a distant learner.