Persona Coaches

As Director of Columbia University’s Center for Digital Research and Scholarship (CDRS), part of the University Libraries/Information Services, Rebecca Kennison is responsible for developing the programs and services of the Center and for coordinating these efforts with other divisions, including the Center for New Media Teaching and Learning, the Copyright Advisory Office, the Libraries Digital Program Division, the Libraries Information Technology Office, and Preservation and Digital Conversion Division. Her primary objective for the Center is to facilitate scholarly research and the communication of that research through technology solutions, and she and her team work on innovative projects with faculty and researchers to address the issues that affect them. Before coming to Columbia, Kennison worked for a variety of publishers, both commercial and non-profit, including Healthline Networks, Public Library of Science (PLoS), Database Publishing, Blackwell Publishing, SilverPlatter Education, and Cell Press.

Jabin White is Director of Strategic Content for Wolters Kluwer Health’s Professional & Education Division. In this role, White is responsible for advising WK’s publishing teams on relevant technologies, collaboratively helping to determine product opportunities, and spearheading P&E’s digital content initiatives.

With a heavy background in XML theory and practice, White has spent most of his career evangelizing the benefits of markup languages and related technologies, including content management, workflow enhancements, and authoring tools.

Prior to joining WK, White served as Vice President, STM Sales for Scope eKnowledge Center, and VP of Product Development at Silverchair, Inc., a leading developer of information solutions for health care publishers.

Before Silverchair, White spent five years as Executive Director of Electronic Production at Elsevier, serving the Health Sciences Division. His group performed the production work for such products as MD Consult, Mosby’s Drug Consult, and The Official ABMS Directory of Board Certified Medical Specialists.

White started in health sciences publishing as an editorial assistant at Current Medicine, and learned SGML at Mosby in the mid-90’s, working on the drug reference Physicians GenRx. He has held electronic publishing positions at Mosby, Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, and Unbound Medicine. He is a graduate of Wake Forest University with a BA in history and has a Masters in Business Administration from Pennsylvania State University.

Michael Clarke is Executive Vice President for Product & Market Development at Silverchair where he leads platform development. Prior to joining Silverhchair, he was founder and principal of Clarke Publishing Group, a boutique consultancy focusing on scholarly publishing.

Michael held positions at the American Medical Association, where he was Director of Marketing and Product Development, the American Academy of Pediatrics, where he was senior managing editor of scholarly journals and executive editor of the journal Pediatrics, and at the University of Chicago Press, where he was senior production editor. He currently serves as vice-chair of the American Heart Association’s (AHA) Scientific Publications Committee, which oversees the AHA’s journal publishing program. Michael holds a master’s degree from the University of Chicago and a bachelor’s degree from the University of Colorado.