June 5, 2019 – Mount Laurel, NJ – The Society for Scholarly Publishing (SSP) recognized the efforts of five deserving individuals at the SSP 41st Annual Meeting, held in San Diego, CA, May 29-31.
“The contributions of our dedicated volunteer members are the backbone of this society,” said Melanie Dolechek, Executive Director of SSP. “Without their efforts, SSP could not fulfill its mission and meet its goals. These awards honor those that have gone above and beyond to help further the mission of SSP.”
Jennifer Pesanelli, 2018-2019 Past President and chair of the Nominating and Awards Committee presented the awards at a luncheon during the Annual Meeting.
Appreciation Award
Appreciation Awards were bestowed on three SSP members whose contributions to the society are have had a substantial impact. SSP congratulates Laura Ricci, Rebecca McLeod, and Nick Dormer.
Laura Ricci, Consultant at Clarke and Esposito, was recognized for her work as co-chair of the Annual Meeting Program Committee from 2015-2017, before being elected to the Board of Directors.
“Anyone who has worked on or attended a SSP Annual Meeting can see that putting together these programs is a substantial time commitment. A tremendous amount of work and thought are required to pull together diverse, interesting programming, and to do it for several years in a row, with each subsequent year being as strong or stronger than the last, is no small feat,” said Pesanelli.
Rebecca McLeod, Strategic Account Manager at Copyright Clearance Center and Nick Dormer, Producer at Wiley were recognized for their work as co-chairs of SSP’s Diversity and Inclusion Task Force which was established two years ago.
“Nick and Rebecca have shown great dedication and leadership. They have brought together a truly diverse group of individuals, worked with them to agree and implement a clear set of goals to improve diversity and inclusion across a range of SSP initiatives and activities—to educate the membership on building diverse and inclusive communities; to support diversity and inclusion in scholarly publishing; and to improve the task force’s ability to support diversity and inclusion initiatives within the organization. Led by Nick and Rebecca, the hard work and commitment of the task force have recently resulted in it becoming a standing SSP committee,” said Pesanelli.
Emerging Leader Award
The 2019 Emerging Leader award this year went to Hannah Heckner, Associate Director, Product Development and Science Partner Journals at AAAS. Established in 2012, this award recognizes a SSP member, working in the scholarly communication field for 10 years or less, who has demonstrated their potential through outstanding service and contribution on an SSP committee or task force and has made innovative contributions to his/her field.
Pesanelli shared that Hannah’s nomination letter described her as “ambitious, confident, creative, intelligent, and passionate.” In terms of her career, Hannah joined AAAS as a Product Development Associate charged with helping create new Science journals, advertising, and custom publishing products and to support AAAS’s strategic publishing initiatives. She was promoted twice, first to Product Development Manager and most recently to Associate Director, Product Development and Science Partner Journals.
It was noted in her nomination that Hannah has had an immeasurable impact on the Science publishing program and within AAAS. Her ambition, confidence, creativity, decision making, and problem-solving capabilities were essential to AAAS establishing the Science Partner Journal program, a partner publishing service that Hannah now manages.
In her work with SSP, Hannah has been an active contributor on a professional development task force and spent time researching training and certification opportunities for different career stages within scholarly publishing. One of the outcomes of her effort was delivery of market research and business questions for SSP to evaluate when exploring training and certification opportunities.
Distinguished Service Award
The 2019 Distinguished Service Award was given to David Crotty, Editorial Director, Journals Policy at Oxford University Press, for his tireless efforts as The Scholarly Kitchen Executive Editor for the past 6 years. This award is given to a member for his or her work over an extended period on behalf of SSP and the field of scholarly communication. Crotty joined the Kitchen in 2009 as a blogger and then took over as Executive Editor in 2013.
“What most of us—including those who write regularly for the Kitchen—see is not all the work that gets done behind the scenes, but instead the outputs: a steady and consistently interesting and informative stream of thought-provoking insights about the complex and ever-evolving ecosystem of scholarly communication, said Pesanelli. “David is also incredibly thoughtful about ensuring all voices are heard in the Kitchen and exercises care and concern while maintaining a good editor’s critical edge and keen sense of judgement. Since The Scholarly Kitchen is so important as a product of SSP, and since so much of the work David does in keeping the Kitchen operational is never seen by anyone else, it seems appropriate to honor him and his work in this way.”
The Society for Scholarly Publishing congratulates the 2019 SSP award recipients and thanks them for all their work on behalf of SSP as an organization and scholarly publishing as a whole.
About the Society for Scholarly Publishing – Founded in 1978, SSP is a nonprofit organization formed to promote and advance communication among all sectors of the scholarly publication community through networking, information dissemination, and facilitation of new developments in the field. SSP members represent all aspects of scholarly publishing — including publishers, printers, e-products developers, technical service providers, librarians, and editors. SSP members come from a wide range of large and small commercial and nonprofit organizations. They meet at SSP’s annual meetings, educational seminars, and regional events to hear the latest trends from respected colleagues and to discuss common and mutual (and sometimes divergent) goals and viewpoints.
For more information, contact:
Melanie Dolechek
Executive Director
info@sspnet.org | +1-856-439-1385
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