Since 2009, IOP Publishing has provided funding for new PAM librarians with four $1000 stipends to help defray the costs of traveling to the SLA Annual Conference. This year, the travel stipends were renamed the ‘Louise Leckner Memorial Travel Stipends’ in honor of our dear friend and colleague who was so proud to be a part of this program. Louise celebrated our association with the PAM Division and felt proud to be a part of this effort which both supports new librarians and deepens the relationships between those librarians and the PAM Division.
For 2013, in Louise’s memory, IOP Publishing doubled the stipend value to $2000 apiece for the recipients to attend the 2013 SLA Annual Conference in San Diego, CA. Qualifying applicants had to be recent graduates of a library science graduate program, in their first three years of professional librarianship, employed by a physical sciences library or as a subject specialist for one or more of the PAM disciplines, and first-time attendees of the SLA Annual Conference as a professional librarian or first-time attendees in a PAM discipline.
We would like to thank all of the new librarians who applied for this stipend. We appreciate the time and effort you put into your application.
Without further ado, here are the 2013 Louise Leckner Memorial Travel Stipend Recipients:
Melissa Cheung is a Science and Engineering Librarian at the University of Ottawa. She is responsible for several subjects including physics, mathematics and statistics. A graduate from the School of Information Studies at the University of Ottawa, she received her MIS in 2011. She has also worked at Industry Canada’s Library and Knowledge Centre as an Information Specialist and at the Ottawa Public Library as a page. Melissa holds a BS from Carleton University and worked for two years as a research laboratory technician at the Ontario Cancer Institute. She is looking forward to attending the 2013 SLA Conference.
Manuel de la Cruz Gutiérrez is the Science and Technology Librarian at the University of Houston Libraries since 2011. His educational background include a BS in physics (Universidad de Guadalajara), a PhD in optics (University of Rochester), postdoctoral training in neuroimaging (Baylor College of Medicine; University of Houston) and an MLS (Texas Woman’s University). Manuel has always been interested in research, but during his first postdoctoral years he realized that more than doing the research himself, he enjoyed supporting it. This, together with a love of science, took him on a path to become the happy science librarian he fancies himself to be.
Kathleen Gregory has worked as the Interim Science & Engineering Librarian at the University of Denver since the summer of 2012. During her first year of academic librarianship, she has developed a passion for scientific information literacy and a budding interest in data management services. Prior to entering the academic arena, Kathleen worked at a military library in Stuttgart, Germany, and taught high school chemistry in Denver, Colorado. Kathleen lives with her husband and two children in Denver and enjoys spending time in the nearby Rocky Mountains.
Shirley Zhao is the Physical Sciences Librarian at Kresge Physical Sciences Library of Dartmouth College. In addition to reference, instruction and collection services, she is a core member of the Education & Outreach program and acts as the library liaison to the Department of Physics and Astronomy. Shirley is an active SLA PAM member and the current SLA New England Director of Communications. She holds a BA from Smith College, an MS in Mathematics from NYU’s Courant Institute and an MSLIS from LIU’s Palmer School. In her free time, Shirley enjoys making bread and desserts, hiking local trails and solving crossword puzzles.
IOP Publishing would like to express gratitude to the PAM Division and the PAM Professional Development Review Committee for another great year. We offer a special thank you to Margaret Lam, PAM Professional Development Chair (and prior travel stipend winner), for all her time and dedication to this program and for providing the content for this article.
See you all in 2014!