2018 Annual Meeting Program

Elizabeth Gross Cohn, PhD, RN, NP, FAAN, loves libraries and grew up in a number of them on Long Island and New York where she spent her formative years among the stacks and reading all manner of books.

She was named by President Obama as a White House Champion of Change in Precision Medicine for her work at the intersection of precision medicine, public health and health equity. She is the Rudin Professor of Community Engaged Research at Hunter-Bellevue School of Nursing and was the Inaugural Executive Director of the Center for Health Innovation at Adelphi University. She leads Community Engagement for the All of Us New York City Consortium as well as the Irving Institute for Clinical and Translational Science at Columbia University and Cornell University.

She has had funding from the National Institutes of Health, the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute, and New York State Department of Health. As an alumnus of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Nurse Faculty Scholars Program, she works to transform lives with both her award-winning teaching and her research. Her work has been featured in the New York Times, on National Public Radio’s All Things Considered, in The Atlantic and in Men’s Health.

Dr. Cohn received her Associate’s Degree from Nassau Community College, her Bachelor’s Degree from the State University of New York at Purchase, her Master’s Degree and Nurse Practitioner from the State University of New York at Stony Brook and her Doctorate from Columbia University.

Nicole Contaxis, MLIS, is the NYU Data Catalog Coordinator at the NYU Health Sciences Library. She works alongside researchers to make research data discoverable through the NYU Data Catalog. Her main responsibilities include planning and conducting outreach events, curating metadata in the catalog, and collaborating with other medical librarians through the Data Catalog Collaboration Project. Her areas of interest include data sharing, data ethics, and community outreach.

Nicole is a former National Digital Stewardship Resident at the National Library of Medicine. She received her M.L.I.S. from UCLA, and is currently working on her M.A. in Bioethics at NYU.

Christopher Duffy, MLIS, is the Associate Dean and Founding Director of the Interprofessional Health Sciences Library at Seton Hall University, serving Seton Hall’s College of Nursing, School of Health and Medical Sciences, and the brand-new Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine at Seton Hall, located in Nutley, NJ. Prior to joining Seton Hall, Chris was the Director of Library Services for four hospitals in the Robert Wood Johnson Barnabas Health (RWJBH) system. Chris received his MLIS degree from Rutgers University, and is a Senior member of the Academy of Health Information Professionals.

Barbara Epstein, MSLS, AHIP, FMLA, is Director of the Health Sciences Library System (HSLS) at the University of Pittsburgh, and Director of the Middle Atlantic Region of the National Network of Libraries of Medicine (NN/LM MAR). She earned an undergraduate degree from the University of Pittsburgh, followed by an MSLS at Case Western Reserve University with a specialization in health sciences libraries. Epstein has been a leader within MLA, currently serving as Immediate Past President and member of the Board of Directors. She was honored as an MLA Fellow, and Janet Doe Lecturer. She has chaired several committees and sections, and is a Distinguished AHIP member. Epstein has also been active in the Association of Academic Health Sciences Libraries (AAHSL), having served on the Board of Directors and the Legislative Task Force. Epstein has authored numerous articles, book chapters and presentations.

Kate Flewelling, MLIS, is the Executive Director of the National Network of Libraries of Medicine, Middle Atlantic Region, Health Sciences Library System, University of Pittsburgh. Before taking on this role in 2017, she coordinated outreach to health professionals in NNLM MAR for 6 years. She was previously at Upstate Medical University, Inova Fairfax Hospital and the National Library of Medicine. In 2017, she was named one of 50 Distinguished Graduates of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee School of Information Studies.

Kendra Godwin, MLIS, moderator of the panel discussion, is a Research Informationist at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center Library. As the liaison for the Evidence-based Cancer Imaging Program, she manages the Library’s role in endorsing, modifying, or creating appropriate use criteria for specific clinical domains. She recently completed two years within the National Library of Medicine Associate Fellowship Program, which included residencies on the NIH campus and at the NYU Health Sciences Library. She received her MLIS from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Gregg Stevens, MSLS, MST, moderator of the lightning talks, is a health sciences librarian at Stony Brook University. He is the liaison to the university’s School of Nursing. Before 2017, he was a health sciences librarian at Mercer University in Atlanta. He is an active member of the Medical Library Association and he is a convener for MLA’s LGBTQ Health Sciences Librarians Special Interest Group. Previously he was active with the Southern Chapter of MLA as well as local and state organizations in Florida and Georgia. Gregg was a participant in MLA’s Rising Star program in 2016-2017.

Terrie Wheeler, AMLS, was appointed the Director of the Samuel J. Wood Library and C.V. Starr Biomedical Information Center in 2014 to lead a library transformation to a facility supporting next generation science, care and education at Weill Cornell Medicine. She has over 35 years of experience in medical librarianship that enables her to effectively lead change. She has been awarded NIH funding at Weill Cornell, and has introduced grant editing, bibliometrics, bioinformatics and a HIPAA compliant data core as new library services. Her leadership has envigorated current programs, and set a vision for the future that is about information services to advance science.

She has held prior supervisory positions since 1991 at the Department of Veterans Affairs, the National Institutes of Standards and Technology, the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research and as the Chief of the Education Services Branch of the National Institutes of Health Library. She has experience as both a clinical and basic sciences informationist. Terrie holds Bachelor’s degrees in Biology and English from Adrian College, and a Master’s in Library Science from the University of Michigan.