10am. Room A
Dr. Misty Schattle holds a Bachelor of Arts in history and museum studies, a Master of Library Science, and a Doctor of Education in educational leadership. She has 20 years of experience as a teacher and school librarian at the elementary and high school levels. Currently, Dr. Schattle is the research and instruction librarian for education at Sam Houston State University. Along with loving books, she also loves research and makes it her goal to share this love with students.
Jaimie Ridley has worked in education for 22 years. Jaimie taught both regular education and special education at the junior high and high school level for four years, and she has spent the last 18 years as a middle school librarian. In this capacity she strives to create a welcoming environment for students to feel safe and secure. Jaimie believes that the library is the heart of the campus where all students and faculty can be themselves in a safe, judgment-free zone.
Jesse Javillonar is the librarian at Klein Cain High School in Klein ISD. He has 13 years of experience in education as a school librarian at the high school and junior high levels, and an elementary special education teacher. Jesse works to make the library a space where everyone in the school community feels welcomed and represented through both literature and programming.
Room B 10am
Laurie Bruns is extremely passionate about libraries and education! I believe that librarians are magic, and the world deserves to know more about us. I have been a librarian for 6 years, and I currently work as a Reference Librarian for TTU Health Sciences Center. I love helping librarians realize their power and sharing what we can do with the world!
Room A 11am
Katherine Hooker has worked as a librarian at Southwestern University, an undergraduate liberal arts school, since 2005. She oversees the library and information literacy instruction delivered to all incoming students. Katherine has a background in art history/visual resources and her hobbies include hiking the national parks and taking care of two young cats.
Emily Thorpe joined the Smith Library team in 2022, as Instruction and Student Success librarian. She provides a much-needed fresh perspective for the department, bringing with her a strong background as a school librarian. Emily enjoys ballet and reading and also has two cats, as well as an adorable puppy.
Room A 12pm
Dr. Laura Sheneman is a lecturer in the University of West Georgia's Educational Technology and Foundations department. Dr. Sheneman's interests include K-12 education, educator preparation, professional development, and instructional technology.
Dr. Jessica Thompson is a lecturer and program coordinator for the SLM program at UWG. She has been in education since 1999 and is passionate about teaching future school librarians.
Room B 12pm
Linda Gray received her MLS in 1992 from Southern Connecticut State University, and has worked in public, school and college libraries. As a native Texan raised in the northeast, she returned with her Connecticut husband, Bob, in 1995, moving to Tyler. They raised two daughters, Julia & Becca, there and relocated to Brenham for Linda’s new position at Blinn College in 2019. As the Library Director, she happily gets to lead library instruction on occasion and is an embedded librarian for Speech and Fine Arts courses.
Room A 1pm
Kimberly M. Gay is the Head of Reference and Information Services Academic Reference and Instruction Librarian II at Prairie View A&M University- a part of the Texas A&M University System’s John B. Coleman Library. Her work experience includes more than 20 years of professional Academic Librarianship. She credits being a member of both the Texas Library Association, the American Library Association and a lifetime member of Beta Phi Mu International Honor Society for Library and Information Studies. She received a Master of Science Degree in Library Science and Information Studies from Texas Woman's University Suma Cum Laude.
Room A 2pm
Collin Stephenson is a former Texas high school teacher, former Texas high school librarian, and current Research and Information Literacy Librarian at the University of Texas at Arlington. In my career thus far, I've focused heavily on scaffolding instruction, student choice in learning, and the generation of multimodal instructional materials. My current work focuses on training undergraduate students as peer tutors for research and information literacy and on undergraduate research success in English courses, especially our core English course that students in all courses of study must take.
Room A 3pm
Marj Atkinson, MLS is the founder of "Ask Marj the Research Sage," which was established in 2019 to address the gap in resources available to graduate students. Marj is an academic success coach, empowering graduate students to achieve their educational goals. Her expertise also spans market research, grant opportunity identification, meticulous fact-checking, and resource discovery, serving small businesses, faculty, and authors.