What Really Motivates Researchers to Make Real-World Impact?

Although every year in the scholarly publishing ecosystem is a balancing act of innovation, optimization, and value creation, 2025 is shaping up to be particularly challenging as the pace and scale of change is accelerating more than we’ve ever seen before. There is increasing pressure to provide value to and to meet the incredibly diverse needs of the global research community while maintaining financial health for our own organizations, living our values, and continuing to protect the scholarly record. With AI, open access, integrity, and mistrust frequently dominating the conversation, we are in the midst of an unprecedented shift in both our industry and society as a whole. As always, the SSP community continues to focus on bringing together academics, funders, librarians, publishers, service providers, technologists, researchers and countless others with a communal interest and stake in disseminating scholarly information. We look to the 47th Annual Meeting as an opportunity to continue this tradition and welcome all colleagues and community stakeholders.

Camille Gamboa is Associate Vice President of Corporate Communications at Sage where she manages a program to support a healthy future for social and behavioral science. In this capacity, she convenes representatives from across the trans-Atlantic to collaborate and share best practices. Camille is also a regular blogger for the Charleston Hub where she writes about the intersection of research, publishing, and academic librarianship. She has a Master of Arts in communication from Pepperdine University and a certificate for women and leadership from Antioch University. She lives in the DC area with her husband and two daughters.

Dr. Nicky Agate is Associate Dean for Academic Engagement and Principal Librarian at Carnegie Mellon University Libraries, where she also serves as Editorial Director of CMU Press. Nicky’s research focuses on creating more equitable systems for scholarly evaluation, transforming academic culture through values-based decision-making, and fostering sustainable, ethical approaches to academic publishing. Nicky is currently spearheading the Project on Open and Evolving Metaliteracies (POEM), an IMLS-funded initiative curating and publishing OER for AI literacy in higher education. She is also a co-PI on the HuMetricsHSS project and on the Hewlett and Mellon-funded Values-Enacted Leadership Institute, which facilitates values-based approaches to academic evaluation and leadership. Before joining CMU in 2023, Nicky held leadership positions at the University of Pennsylvania Libraries, Columbia University Libraries, and the Modern Language Association. She has a PhD in French Literature from New York University and an MFA in Literary Translation from the University of Iowa.

Samantha leads Silverchair's product marketing strategy for The Silverchair Platform, ScholarOne Manuscripts + Conferences, and Sensus Impact. She is responsible for collaborating cross-functionally, as well as with external clients and partners to ensure the broadest reach and understanding for Silverchair's product suite. She has worked in the publishing industry for over a decade, including at Wiley and Morressier.

Taylor leads Overton’s product strategy for Overton’s flagship products, Index and Engage.  She acts as a bridge between users and developers; learning how best to deliver user centred products that help bridge the gap between academia and policymaking. Prior to Overton she worked in the conference industry before making her way into tech start ups, where she discovered her passion for building great products.