Faculty & Staff Achievements: April 2023

Hunt Library

At Carnegie Mellon University Libraries, we celebrate the many contributions of the faculty and staff who make the Libraries the destination for scholarly information, creative inquiry, and intellectual collaboration across disciplines, propelling the significance, reach, and impact of the university.


Jimmy and AshleyEntrepreneurship Librarian Jimmy McKee and English and Drama Liaison Librarian Ashley Werlinich had their 99-520 course proposal accepted for the upcoming Summer 2023 semester. This 6-unit course is an 8-week pilot with approximately 90 hours of student work, focused around developing digital media, business research, and other related skills for the purpose of creating a business plan for a creative-output-related business idea/brand.


Melanie GaineyLibrarian Melanie Gainey has been promoted to Open Science Program Director.

Jason Glenn has been promoted to Program Director for Research Information Management Services.


Sayeed ChoudhuryDirector of Open Source Programs Office Sayeed Choudhury is the featured speaker for the 2023 Copley Library's Digital Initiatives Symposium. His talk is titled "How Open Scholarship will Help Reboot the World." It examines the role of libraries and other cultural heritage institutions in expanding access to open scholarship, to empower people and profoundly benefit global society — especially in the wake of the unprecedented change of the last three years.


Heidi Wiren KebeAssociate Director of Marketing Heidi Wiren Kebe was selected to receive a grant from the Frank-Ratchye Further Fund (FRFF) — an endowment to encourage the creation of innovative artworks by the faculty, students, and staff of Carnegie Mellon University. With this fund, the Frank-Ratchye STUDIO for Creative Inquiry seeks to develop a cache of groundbreaking projects created at CMU — works that can be described as “thinking at the edges” of the intersection of disciplines.

Project Description: The Propelled Animals are invited artists for the 2023 LA VILLE EN MOUV’MENT FESTIVAL “the arts in the street” in Dakar, Senegal from May 27-June 10, 2023. With the support of the municipality of Dakar, the United States Embassy in Senegal, the French Embassy in Dakar, and Goethe Institute; LA VILLE EN MOUV’MENT FESTIVAL will be the fourth edition of the international contemporary dance gathering in public spaces of Dakar, Senegal.

This festival calls its curated artists, from the plastic and performing arts, to build, research, and compose a series of site-responsive installations in public spaces, for two weeks, in collaboration with the everyday inhabitants of Dakar. Artists will recycle, develop, and offer their performative installations in the streets of Dakar and its suburbs; an approach of intense creation that often leads to spectacle and lively traveling showcases in popular neighborhoods.

the arts in the street,” invites the people of Dakar to play and interact with artists developing new possibilities for performance, art, and the everyday; electrifying relationships between people and art these partnerships offer abundance and innovation, all of this in a city where sometimes violence is the only means of expression.


Haoyong LanElectrical and Computer Engineering Librarian Haoyong Lan has been elected as the Co-Chair (2023-2025) of the ACRL/STS (Science and Technology Section) Scholarly Communication Committee.


Alexandra HinikerAlexandra Hiniker, director of the Sustainability Initiative, recently presented her work localizing the Global Goals for both CMU and New York City to over 40 regional groups discussing just and sustainable development in Southwestern Pennsylvania as members of the DISCOVER network. DISCOVER is convened by Sustainable Pittsburgh to create a shared, inclusive framework for tracking sustainability performance, communicating regional needs and progress, and driving coordinated interventions toward regional sustainability outcomes and policies. Hiniker also serves on the Steering Committee of DISCOVER.

In partnership with the United Nations Foundation, Hiniker also published a series of short guides on how universities can adapt the Global Goals to their context.


by Sarah Bender, Communications Coordinator