Heather Joseph serves as the Executive Director of the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC), an international coalition of over 800 libraries working to enable a more open system of scholarly communication. As SPARC’s Director, she has focused on supporting the development of new publishing strategies and business models, and advocating for national and international policies that encourage the adoption of Open Access as a central principle of research and scholarship. Prior to joining SPARC, she spent 15 years as a publishing executive in both commercial and not-for-profit publishing organizations. She is an active participant on the Board of Directors of numerous not-for-profit organizations, and is a frequent speaker and writer on scholarly communications in general, and on Open Access in particular.

 

Goldis Chami is a medical student at the University of British Columbia and a member of the Right to Research Coalition Steering Committee. She has led the charge for her institution to adopt an open-access policy and serves on its Scholarly Communications Steering Committee.  She is also actively working to get more Canadian students involved in promoting Open Access and to support local advocacy efforts through her work on a forthcoming on-campus advocacy guide.  She writes regularly for The Global and Mail about medical training and healthcare.