Dr. Andrew White has 35+ years of experience in academic libraries including public and technical services, as well as information systems administration. Prior to his role at Rensselaer, he held a variety of positions in Stony Brook University including Associate Director of the Health Sciences Library, Director of the Health Sciences Library, and the Interim Director of Libraries and Dean of Library Services. From 2013 until 2016, Andrew was the Associate Chief Information Officer and Senior Director for Research Computing, holding a faculty position in the Department of Biomedical Informatics, working with teams on various healthcare data analytics projects. Andrew holds graduate degrees in library science from Queens College and music history from Stony Brook University and the City University of New York and was a 2012 UCLA Senior Fellow. He has contributed articles to the Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science, Computers in Libraries, LCATS, and The Electronic Library. 

David Hansen is the Executive Director of Authors Alliance, a nonprofit that aims to support authors who want to see their works widely distributed for the benefit of the public. Authors Alliance has led efforts to secure copyright exemptions for text data mining researchers and has played an important role in advocating for legal access to research corpora for computational research. Dave has testified before Congress, the U.S. Copyright Office, and the USPTO on copyright, AI, open access, and fair use issues affecting academic authors and universities. He has also advocated for researchers' rights under copyright and the First Amendment in numerous federal cases. Before Authors Alliance, Dave was Lead for Copyright & Information Policy and an Associate University Librarian at Duke University. He holds a JD and MSLS from UNC Chapel Hill and previously held academic appointments at UC Berkeley School of Law and UNC Chapel Hill School of Law.

Dr. Erik P. Bean is a full-time professor of practice in the Ph.D. in Global Leadership program at Indiana Tech. A national media literacy advocate and Michigan Chapter Leader for Media Literacy Now, Dr. Bean regularly conducts workshops in public and academic libraries on artificial intelligence, media bias, and ethical leadership. He is an appointed section editor of the Journal of Leadership Studies, where his most recent article, Eavesdropping on UNESCO AI Policy, Leadership, and Ethics, was published by Wiley (https://doi.org/10.1002/jls.70007).

In 2025, Dr. Bean served as a panelist at the International Conference on Synergizing Eco Interventions for Achieving SDGs hosted by Amrita University in Kochi, India, where he spoke on the role of AI in higher education for sustainability. His interdisciplinary scholarship bridges media literacy, digital ethics, and leadership education. He is the author of the award-winning nonprofit 57-page book Bias Is All Around You: A Handbook for Inspecting Social Media & News Stories. Additionally, his peer-reviewed article, Seven Initial Prominent Sources of All Information Bias Impartiality Types Parsed, was published in Media Literacy and Academic Research (https://doi.org/10.34135/mlar-23-01-03).

Jason Casden is the Head of Software Development at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill University Libraries. He leads engineers working on a diverse portfolio of projects dedicated to building, maintaining, and innovating the Libraries' digital services, including digital collections and repositories, archival information systems, digital preservation systems, and the public catalog discovery layer.

Jeff Campbell is the Head of Infrastructure Management Services at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill University Libraries. He leads a team of system administrators responsible for the Libraries’ core IT infrastructure. His team ensures the stability, security, and scalability of the systems that support the Libraries’ services and operations.

Dean Boughida is an internationally regarded leader in data and library/information science. He is a frequently invited speaker for national and international conferences and seminars, and serves on several boards. This includes the board of directors for the Boston Library Consortium; the board of NISO (National Information Standards Organization), for which he was elected vice chair; and editorial boards for the International Journal on Digital Libraries and the Journal of the Special Libraries Association Arabian – Gulf Chapter. 

Boughida holds a master’s degree in library and information science from the University of Montreal, and a bachelor’s degree in library science from the University of Constantine in Algeria. He is fluent in English, Arabic and French. 

Dr. Laurie Bridges is a Professor, Director of the AI Literacy Center, and Humanities Librarian at Oregon State University. Her most recent research and teaching are focused on critical generative AI literacy in higher education. Ms. Bridges also teaches a one-credit undergraduate Honors College colloquium, Generative Artificial Intelligence and Society. Laurie holds a Ph.D. in Information Science & Communication at the University of Barcelona.

Tim Shearer is the Associate University Librarian for Digital Strategies and IT at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill University Libraries. In this role he leads the Library Information Technology division and has responsibility for commodity computing, infrastructure, user experience, software development, repository development, discovery, digitization, and information security. Tim is interested in how technology can play a transformative role in supporting discovery, delivery, use, and preservation of information. He holds an MSLS from UNC Chapel Hill’s School of Information and Library Science.