Against the Grain - The Podcast

The following interview is part of the 2025 Charleston Conference Leadership Interview Series. In this series, we sit down with leaders and innovators who are making a real difference in scholarly publishing, libraries, and the broader information world. Each conversation is a chance to hear firsthand how these decision makers tackle new challenges, rethink traditional models, and collaborate acro...

The following interview is part of the 2025 Charleston Conference Leadership Interview Series. In this series, we sit down with leaders and innovators who are making a real difference in scholarly publishing, libraries, and the broader information world. Each conversation is a chance to hear firsthand how these decision makers tackle new challenges, rethink traditional models, and collaborate acro...

The following interview is the first in this year's Charleston Conference Leadership Interview Series. In this series, we sit down with leaders and innovators who are making a real difference in scholarly publishing, libraries, and the broader information world. Each conversation is a chance to hear firsthand how these decision makers tackle new challenges, rethink traditional models, and collabor...

Today's episode features guest host Michael Upshall (guest editor, Charleston Briefings) who talks with Ross Mounce , Director of Open Access, Arcadia, a family philanthropy. A paleontologist, Ross has a PhD in evolutionary biology. When he began his PhD research at the University of Bath, he realized the lack of access to research papers and the data, and he believed researchers need to be more o...

Today's episode features guest host Michael Upshall (guest editor, Charleston Briefings) who talks with Herbert Van de Sompel , Researcher Fellow at Data Archiving and Networked Services (DANS) and Guest Professor at Ghent University. Although Herbert has spent the last 25 to 30 years working in libraries, he doesn't describe himself as a librarian but as what he calls an "infrastructure plumber."...

This episode is sponsored by Moara.io and contains corporate sponsored content. All content is provided by Moara.io . The views, opinions, and content expressed during this sponsored episode are those of the participants, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the podcast or the Charleston Hub. Sponsorship does not imply endorsement of any products, services, or statements made during the epi...

Today's episode features guest host  Michael Upshall (guest editor, Charleston Briefings) who talks with Adam Hyde , Founder, Coko (Collaborative Knowledge Foundation). Adam is known for innovating in publishing. In this conversation, he talks about an interesting career progression and how he transitioned into scholarly publishing. Born in New Zealand, he earned his master's in philosophy at Waik...

Today's episode features guest host Michael Upshall (guest editor, Charleston Briefings) who talks with Abel Packer , Co-Founder, SciELO. In this conversation, Abel talks about beginning his career in engineering and computer science, working on UN demographic data projects in Latin America and creating the early bibliographic system, DocPop. He then earned his Masters in Library Science and, in 1...

Today's episode features guest host Michael Upshall (guest editor, Charleston Briefings) who talks with Joy Connolly , President, American Council of Learned Societies. Joy has been President of ACLS since 2019. Prior to this, she was provost and interim president of the CUNY Graduate Center. Joy says she has always had an interest in the classics and has written two books on Roman Political Theor...

Today's episode features guest host  Michael Upshall ( guest editor, Charleston Briefings) who talks with Rob Johnson , Managing Director, Founder, Research Consulting. Rob Johnson is founder and CEO of Research Consulting, well-known in scholarly publishing for investigations into policy. In this interview, we talk with Rob about his background and talk about his group's recent large-scale report...

Today's episode features guest host Michael Upshall ( guest editor, Charleston Briefings) who talks with Steve Gump , Author and Associate Director, Fellowships, University of Virginia. Steve is author of the recently published How to Review Scholarly Books (Princeton University Press). In addition to working as a fellowship advisor at University of Virginia, he has also worked as a book review ed...

Today's episode features guest host  Michael Upshall ( guest editor, Charleston Briefings) who talks with Rice Majors , Associate University Librarian, University of California, Davis. Rice studied music and worked in the library as an undergraduate, where he was initially hired during the Summer to work on a retroactive barcoding project of their collections, looking at stacks of the music librar...

Today's episode features guest host Michael Upshall ( guest editor, Charleston Briefings) who talks with Ronald Snijder , CTO, Head of Research, OAPEN Foundation. Ronald first obtained his bachelor's in librarianship, then worked in IT, and then moved into academic publishing with Amsterdam University Press. He says he combines all these experiences with OAPEN library work, where he f ocuses on op...

Today's episode features guest host Michael Upshall ( guest editor, Charleston Briefings) who talks with Brian Nosek ,   Executive Director, Center for Open Science. Brian is co-founder of three different non-profit organizations: The Center for Open Science, Project Implicit and the Society for the Improvement of Psychological Science, all of which are centered around advancing research and educa...

Today's episode features guest host Michael Upshall ( guest editor, Charleston Briefings) who talks with Damien Pattinson , Executive Director, eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd. Damien earned his PhD in neuroscience . After a postdoc at Kings College, London, UK, he began his career in scholarly publishing almost twenty years ago, first joining BMJ as a scientific editor, then PLOS ONE as executiv...

This episode is sponsored by Taylor & Francis, and the views, opinions, and content expressed during this sponsored episode are those of the participants, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the podcast or the Charleston Hub. Sponsorship does not imply endorsement of any products, services, or statements made during the episode. Thank you to Taylor & Francis for supporting ATG the Podcast...

Today's episode features guest host Michael Upshall ( guest editor, Charleston Briefings) who talks with John Willinsky , Founder, Public Knowledge Project. In this conversation, John talks about his career beginnings as a schoolteacher, then becoming a college professor and researcher. In 1998, he became frustrated with being unable to share research findings with the public due to copyright issu...

Today's episode features guest host Michael Upshall ( guest editor, Charleston Briefings) who talks with Stephen Webster , Director, Science Communication Unit, Imperial College, London. Stephan began his career by studying biology and the life sciences and attended Cambridge University where he studied the philosophy of science, and became interested in how science is understood and taught. He sp...

Today's episode features guest host Michael Upshall ( guest editor, Charleston Briefings) who talks with David Worlock , Publishing Veteran and Digital Strategy Advisor. David began his career in the scholarly publishing industry over 50 years ago. In this conversation, he reflects on the evolution of scholarly communication since the 1970's when he began working in law publishing, the shift to di...

Today's episode features guest host Michael Upshall ( guest editor, Charleston Briefings) who talks with Liam Bullingham , Assistant Director of Academic and Research Services, University of Essex. Liam is a Trustee and a conference organizer of UKSG, serves on the Library Advisory Group for Open Research Europe, co-organizes 'Open Research Week' with colleagues in Liverpool and Lancashire, and is...

Today's episode features guest host Michael Upshall ( guest editor, Charleston Briefings) who talks with Richard Sever , Assistant Director, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press. Richard earned his PhD in molecular biology and has been with Cold Spring Harbor for over 17 years. He recently became Chief Science and Strategy Officer at Open Archive, which oversees bioRxiv and medRxiv. Richard says he...

Today's episode features guest host, Michael Upshall ( guest editor, Charleston Briefings) who talks with Richard Jefferson (Founder & CEO, Cambia and Executive Director, Lens.org ). Richard was a pioneer in Open Science in genetics in the 1980's. In this conversation, Richard talks about growing up in California with his mother being a librarian, introducing him to evidence-based thinking from a...

This episode is sponsored by Taylor & Francis, and the views, opinions, and content expressed during this sponsored episode are those of the participants, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the podcast or the Charleston Hub. Sponsorship does not imply endorsement of any products, services, or statements made during the episode. Thank you to Taylor & Francis for supporting ATG the Podcast...

Today's episode features guest host,  Michael Upshall , Consultant, ConsultMU Ltd. , who talks with Torsten Reimer , Dean, University Library, University of Chicago. Torsten currently oversees one of the world's largest academic library collections. In this conversation, Torsten shares his diverse academic journey which began as a historian with a focus on British maritime history,   before leadin...

Today's episode features guest host Lauren Collister , Research Engagement Manager, Invest With Open Infrastructure, and an editorial team member of  Katina , who talks with Lynda Kellam , Snyder-Granader Director of Research Data and Digital Scholarship at Penn Libraries, University of Pennsylvania and a volunteer organizer of the Data Rescue Project. In this conversation, Lynda talks with Lauren...