2021-22 Election Results
2021-2022 MiALA Board of Directors
President
| Kate Langan | |
 | Brief biography I joined WMU Libraries in 2009 as the subject liaison to the humanities department. I hold an M.A. in Library and Information from University of Wisconsin-Madison and an M.A. in French Literature from the University of Oklahoma. My primary responsibilities are teaching, learning, and research support for faculty and students in those disciplines. I currently serve as the department lead for WMU Libraries’ Instruction and Outreach department. My research in the recent past has focused on critical librarianship and critical pedagogy, which can be distilled down to “how we talk about ideas in an information literacy classroom matters.” I also currently serve as vice-chair for the ACRL Project Outcome editorial board. |
Vice President
| Carin Graves | |
 | Brief biography Originally from East Tennessee, I received my undergraduate degree from Indiana University Bloomington in Anthropology. I went on to get a Masters in the Social Sciences from the University of Chicago where I wrote my thesis in the anthropology of food. By this time I knew I wanted to work in libraries so, I went back to Indiana University for my MLS. I was hired at Michigan State University in 2016 where I am the liaison librarian for sociology, criminal justice, social work, and human development and family studies. In my free time I like to read with my cats, watch TV and craft, and go on very slow runs around my neighborhood. |
Past-President
| Cynthia Simpson | |
 | Brief biography Cynthia Simpson has been a MiALA member since the organization was founded in 2015! She has been a professional librarian since 2008, when she completed her MLIS at Wayne State University. From 2006 through 2011, she worked in a variety of public libraries as a youth and adult services librarian and interlibrary loan department supervisor. In 2011 she moved into academic librarianship at Lawrence Technological University, a private STEM university in Southfield, as the Coordinator of Library Access Services. In addition to supervising the student assistant team and managing the Circulation Department, she was the adviser for both the Association of Indian Students and the Muslim Student Association. Currently she is the Director of Library Services at Madonna University, located in Livonia, Michigan. In 2018, Cynthia was selected to participate in ALA’s Leadership Institute and was matched with a year-long mentor through LLAMA’s Mentoring program. She attended the Association of College and Research Libraries' (ACRL) 2019 Conference in Cleveland on a Mid-Career Scholarship and was accepted to the Harvard Graduate School of Education’s 2020 Contemporary Challenges in Library Leadership program. She recently co-presented on the ACRL panel discussion Advocating for Library Workers in Uncertain Times. Cynthia has lived, studied, traveled and worked abroad in over 25 countries and is inherently invested in inclusion, diversity, equity and access. In her free time, she enjoys outdoor activities with her family and rescue Pitbull Bella. She used to really enjoy running until her knee crashed while training for a marathon. |
Secretary
| Clayton Hayes | |
 | Brief biography Clayton Hayes splits his time between Publishing and Learning & Research Support at Wayne State University Libraries, where he has been a full-time librarian since 2015. He serves as the Subject Specialist Librarian to the departments of Mathematics and Urban Studies & Planning in College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, to the department of Kinesiology, Health and Sport Studies in the College of Education, to the Irvin D. Reid Honors College, and most of the College of Engineering. He also helps to manage Wayne State's institutional repository and provides support to myriad publishing initiatives in the WSU Library System. Clayton has been a member of MiALA since becoming a librarian in 2015 and has consistently been involved in the organization since that time. He has served on various standing committees, service which included transitioning the Advocacy Task Force to a full committee, of which he was the inaugural chair. As part of his current role within the organization, he serves as a member of the Interest Group Coordination Council. He has been active in a variety of library-related organizations at the local, state, and national levels, including Network Detroit (a local Digital Humanities conference), the Southeastern Michigan League of Libraries (SEMLOL), Mid-Michigan Digital Practitioners (MMDP), LOEX, and the Library Publishing Coalition (LPC). He is a lifelong resident of Southeast Michigan and has lived and worked in Detroit since 2006. |
Treasurer
| Rachel Minkin | |
 | Brief biography Currently Head of Reference and Discovery Services at Michigan State University (East Lansing, MI), Rachel has also served as an information literacy librarian at MSU, a reference and instruction librarian at Lansing Community College (Lansing, MI) and a reference librarian at the Graduate Theological Union's Flora Lamson Hewlett Library (Berkeley, CA). Rachel's earned her MLIS at University of Pittsburgh and also holds a Master of Theological Studies (MTS) from Vanderbilt Divinity School (Nashville, TN). Areas of interest: Virtual Reference services, promotion of library eco-systems at the state level |
Publicly Funded University Representative
| Emilia Marcyk | |
 | Brief biography Emilia Marcyk has been a Teaching & Learning Librarian at Michigan State University since 2014, where she develops instructional content, leads information literacy sessions for the First Year Writing program, and supervises student reference assistants. She received her MS in Library and Information Science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and her BA in English from Bryn Mawr College. |
| Mary O'Kelly | |
 | Brief biography I currently serve as the Associate Dean for Education and User Services at Western Michigan University Libraries. Before that I was Head of Instructional Services at Grand Valley State University Libraries. I started working in education 20 years ago at what was then called the North Central Regional Educational Laboratory in Naperville, Illinois, and is now the American Institutes for Research. Prior to moving into education work I held various creative, leadership, and administrative positions primarily in not-for-profit organizations. I have a Bachelor of Arts in communication from the University of Michigan, a Master of Library and Information Science from the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee, and am working on a Doctor of Philosophy in education and human development with an emphasis on organizational change leadership at Western Michigan University. |
Private University Representative
| Jeremy Barney | |
 | Brief biography |
| Brenna Wade | |
 | Brief biography |
Community College Representative
| Darlene Johnson-Bignotti | |
 | Brief biography I am Library Faculty at Oakland Community College and have spent most of my 18 years at our urban campus in downtown Royal Oak. Aside from one-shot instruction, reference, and collection management, I teach in rotation with my colleagues a one-credit research skills class. Prior to joining OCC I worked briefly for Detroit Public Library, and six weeks short of a decade at Southfield Public Library as the Business Librarian.I have a Bachelor’s degree in Journalism from Grand Valley State University (actually GVS Colleges when I attended; I’m a “Willy Jay” alum) and a Master’s Degree in Library Science from Wayne State University. I am a 2011 graduate of the Galileo Teacher Leadership Academy, a two year cohort focusing on service leadership. In my Me Time I help my husband grow and harvest food from our small-scale farm, read biographies, and dream about catching a concert and traveling sometime soon. |
| Krysta Vincent | |
 | Brief biography Hi! I am an early career librarian, serving as a Reference Librarian for 3 years at Delta College. I was a Graduate Student Assistant in the Wayne State University Library System while completing my MLIS. I'm a member of the Community College IG and the Web/UX IG. At Delta, I do a little bit of everything, but focus primarily on managing our website and our student assistants. |
Interest Group Coordinating Council (IGCC)
| Representative | Caitlin Benallack |
 | Brief biography |
| Representative | Denise Leyton |
 | Brief biography Denise Leyton is the Strategic Projects Coordinator in the Environments department at the University of Michigan Library. She mainly works on making improvements to the in person user experience with connections to the online user experience. She has worked in libraries for 13 years. |
| Representative | Andrew Lundeen |
 | Brief biography Pronouns: he/him/his I joined the MSU Libraries in 2013, working as a temp/on-call employee before taking a full-time staff position with the Turfgrass Information Center (TIC) in 2015, managing student employees, overseeing our database authority files, and curating our digital content. In 2018, I transitioned into a faculty Librarian role within TIC, before joining MSU Special Collections as a Digital Projects Librarian in 2020. I still maintain a secondary assignment within TIC. I received my MS in Library and Information Science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, with a focus in Data Curation and Special Collections Librarianship. I also earned a BA in Religious Studies from Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon, with minors in Philosophy and Classical Studies. |
| Representative | Jessica Shuck |
 | Brief biography I am the eResource Librarian at Cornerstone University. I have been at Miller Library for nine years, in a variety of roles. As in most smaller libraries, my responsibilities range over a few different areas. I currently work with periodicals, the link resolver, discovery layer, access, and outreach. I also serve as the Business liaison and am heavily embedded in several of their classes. I received my B.B.A. in Finance from Grand Valley and my M.L.I.S. from the University of South Florida. |
| Member-at-large | Ida Martinez |
 | Brief biography I am a long-career subject librarian and have worked at four different universities since 2002. I have been liaison to departments in the humanities at Cornell University, social sciences at Emory University and Georgia State University, and now sciences at Wayne State University in Detroit, MI. My research interests are mainly in distance learning and diversity in the profession. Originally from El Paso, Texas, I have also lived in Chicago, IL, and Atlanta, GA for long stretches of time. |
| Member-at-large | To Be Appointed |