Keynote Speakers

Edward Tenner is a distinguished scholar of the Smithsonian’s Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation and a visiting scholar in the Rutgers University Department of History. He was a visiting lecturer in the Humanities Council at Princeton, teaching one of the first courses on the history of information, and has held visiting research positions at the Institute for Advanced Study, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and the University of Pennsylvania. His essays and reviews have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, The Wilson Quarterly, and on Forbes.com, and he has spoken to researchers and designers at Microsoft, Intel, AT&T, and IDEO and at venture capital entrepreneur summits and TED conferences. His Why Things Bite Back: Technology and the Revenge of Unintended Consequences, written in part with support from a Guggenheim Fellowship, has been translated into German, Japanese, Chinese, Italian, Portuguese and Czech. His recent book, Our Own Devices: How Technology Remakes Humanity, was named one of the 100 Notable Books of 2003 by the New York Times Book Reviews. His 2018 book The Efficiency Paradox: What Big Data Can’t Do questions our ingrained assumptions about efficiency, persuasively showing how relying on the algorithms of digital platforms can in fact lead to wasted efforts, missed opportunities, and above all the inability to break out of established patterns.

Miriam E. Sweeney is an assistant professor at the University of Alabama in the School of Library and Information Studies. She holds a master’s degree in Library and Information Science from the University of Iowa, and a doctoral degree in Library and Information Science from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign’s School of Information Sciences. Dr. Sweeney conducts critical cultural research in information and digital media studies, particularly focused aspects of race and gender in the design, use, and meaning of digital technologies. Her recent projects in this area have focused on virtual assistant technologies, interface design, artificial intelligence, and emoji. Additionally, she researches issues surrounding the education and training of Library and Information Science (LIS) students, focusing on critical approaches to LIS that will support future professionals in their roles as change agents in their communities and institutions. Dr. Sweeney’s research has been published in high-profile journals such as Feminist Media Studies; Information, Communication, and Society; First Monday; The Library Quarterly; and Library Trends.

Dr. Kathryn K. Matthew is the fifth director of the Institute of Museum and Library Services. With broad career experience that spans private and nonprofit sectors, Dr. Matthew brings to the agency a deep knowledge of the educational and public service roles of museums, libraries, and related cultural and scientific institutions. She has an enduring interest in bringing together the mission, values, and knowledge assets of cultural and scientific organizations together with their communities’ visions, market opportunities, and partners. She focuses on supporting the vital roles of such organizations in anchoring and catalyzing vibrant and resilient public and professional communities drawing upon cross-sector and cross-domain collaborations, capacity-building, user center design, and change management.

Dr. Matthew also served in the corporate and R&D sectors in several product management roles, including the conceptualization and launch of a new software product for arts and cultural organizations and the facilitation of international innovation teams. A native of South Carolina, Dr. Matthew received her BA in biology from Mount Holyoke College, an MBA from the University of Minnesota’s Carlson School of Management, and a PhD in biology from the University of Pennsylvania.