Soaring with Open Educational Resources: Bios

Kim Alexander

Carmen Allen

Laurie Blandino

Lina Cramer

Rebel Cummings-Sauls

Rebel Cummings-Sauls serves as Director of Digital Services and Open Educational Resources for The Florida Virtual Campus Library Services. Ms. Cummings-Sauls has more than 15 years of experience in higher education, with over six years in academic research libraries and library consortia. Prior to her appointment with the Florida Virtual Campus Library Services, she served as the Director of the Center for the Advancement of Digital Scholarship for Hale Library at Kansas State University. Prior to her appointment to Kansas State in 2015, she served more than three years as Library Operations Coordinator for the Tampa Library at the University of South Florida.

Jan Dowell

Ms. Jan Dowell is an adjunct instructor of Human Nutrition at Lincoln Land Community College and a Registered Dietitian-Nutritionist. As a subject matter specialist for LLCC's Human Nutrition OER project, she co-developed ancillaries and revised existing content. She received the Outstanding Dietetics Educator Award and was LLCC's 2025 nominee for the ICCTA Outstanding Adjunct Faculty Award.>

Stephanie Fletcher

John Freml

Larissa Garcia

Larissa Garcia is an associate professor and information literacy librarian at Northern Illinois University. She serves as subject specialist for Art and Design, Theatre and Dance, and Family and Consumer Sciences. Her research focuses on information literacy for the arts and innovations in faculty collaboration. Garcia also is deeply involved in her institution's affordable course materials initiative.

Tracy Hall

Tracy Hall is a Sleep Technologist and faculty member at Moraine Valley Community College. Passionate about accessible education, she advocates for Open Educational Resources (OER) to expand program reach and workforce development. Tracy’s work focuses on using OER to strengthen the pipeline of skilled professionals in Sleep Technology and to increase enrollment through inclusive, cooperative content. 

Samar Hegazy

Samar Hegazy is an MD and PhD pathologist. She completed her MD degree and Anatomical Pathology Residency training at Zagazig University, Egypt, and her PhD in Molecular Pathology (Laboratory Medicine and Pathology) from the University of Alberta, Canada. She completed her postdoctoral fellowship in clinical cancer research to identify novel prognostic and therapeutic biomarkers for prostate cancer at the University of Calgary and Prostate Cancer Center, Canada. Dr. Hegazy completed and was conferred a Master of Education in Health Professions (MEHP) with leadership specialization from the Johns Hopkins School of Education. She is an Assistant Professor at Carle Illinois College of Medicine (CI MED)-UIUC, the Pathology and Histology Discipline Lead, the Lifespan Health Thread co-director, the respiratory course co-director, the director of the Literature Reviews in pathology elective course, and the chair of the curriculum evaluation subcommittee. Dr. Hegazy is the faculty advisor of the student pathology and Academic Medicine interest groups. Dr. Hegazy is mentoring several medical students who are interested in academic pathology as a career.

Amy Hofer

Amy Hofer, Statewide Open Education Program Director, is the OER librarian for Oregon's colleges and universities; visit the Open Oregon Educational Resources website to learn more.

Wessam Ibrahim

Wessam Ibrahim is a Teaching Assistant Professor and the Anatomy & Embryology Discipline Lead at Carle Illinois College of Medicine, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. She brings a robust background in medical education, having earned her Medical degree, Master’s, and Doctoral degrees in Basic Sciences, Anatomy, and Embryology from Ain-Shams University Faculty of Medicine, Cairo, Egypt. Further enhancing her expertise in educational leadership, she completed a Master of Education in Health Professions (MEHP) at the Johns Hopkins School of Education.

Prior to joining Carle Illinois, Dr. Ibrahim was a distinguished faculty member at Loyola University’s Stritch School of Medicine, where she taught Anatomy and Embryology. Her commitment to excellence in teaching was recognized with the “Educator of the Year Award” on three occasions.

Peter Keep

Peter Keep has a master’s degree in mathematics from Eastern Illinois University and a master’s degree in applied statistics from Colorado State University. He’s interested in teaching calculus and building helpful resources for students. He has been teaching at Moraine Valley Community College in the Chicago suburbs since 2014.

Muhammad Khan

Saadia Khan

Dr. Saadia Khan is a Chemistry faculty member at Triton College in River Grove, IL. She received the IL-SCORES and IL-State Grants. She co-authored four OER lab manuals: Chemistry and Society, Fundamentals of Chemistry, Elementary Organic Chemistry, and General Chemistry I (CHM 140). Using which, she supported, developed, and promoted accessible, open chemistry education resources.

Jessica Kirschner

Jessica Kirschner (she/her) is the Digital Publishing Coordinator at VIVA, Virginia’s academic library consortium. In this role, supports the grant and publication efforts of VIVA's Open and Affordable Course Content program, including managing publishing workflows for grantees and coordinating with external service providers. Jessica began her career working in the acquisitions department at SUNY Press. Since transitioning to librarianship, she has held various positions focusing on publishing and open education, most recently as the OER Librarian at Virginia Commonwealth University. Her research interests focus on library publishing and open education, especially the intersection of the two.

Joe Kohlburn

Lauren Kosrow

Lauren Kosrow (she/her) is the Digital Content and Open Access Librarian at College of DuPage in Glen Ellyn, IL. In this role, she serves as the co-chair of the OER Steering Committee, manages the OER Faculty Support Grant program, and provides leadership for the college’s textbook affordability initiatives.

Tammy Kuhn-Schnell

Jessica Labatte

Jessica Labatte explores photography's materiality through light, color, and illusion. She is an associate professor and Director of Northern Illinois University's School of Art and Design. Labatte has held residencies at Light Work, Ox-Bow, and Latitude. Her work has been widely exhibited and reviewed in major publications including The New York Times and Artforum.

Delmar Larsen

Delmar Larsen is a professor of chemistry at the University of California, Davis and with a career that bridges scientific research and educational innovation. Delmar earned his B.S. in chemistry from the University of Washington and Ph.D. in physical chemistry from the University of Chicago with research performed at the University of California, Berkeley. Delmar completed his postdoctoral research at the University of Southern California and the Free University Amsterdam. Delmar has authored or co-authored over 100 peer-reviewed scientific publications, primarily in the fields of biophysical chemistry and ultrafast spectroscopy.<

With a strong commitment to expanding access to high-quality, affordable education, Delmar is also the founder and executive director of the LibreTexts project, one of the world’s largest and most visited open educational resource (OER) platforms (https://libretexts.org). In 2008, he founded LibreTexts (originally ChemWiki) to address the high cost of textbooks and to provide accessible, high-quality educational resources. LibreTexts has expanded to include over a dozen subject-specific libraries, covering disciplines such as biology, physics, engineering, mathematics, social sciences, and humanities. The LibreTexts platform supports adaptive learning, interactive assessments, and integration with learning management systems, enabling educators to customize content for their courses. LibreTexts has been adopted by hundreds of institutions and integrated into curriculum by thousands of educators, saving students an many millions of dollars in textbook costs. LibreTexts has received significant funding from the U.S. Department of Education, the National Science Foundation, and the California Education Learning Laboratory.

Larsen is a vocal advocate for open education, textbook affordability, and student-centered learning technologies. His work with LibreTexts continues to shape the future of education by promoting equity, innovation, and accessibility in higher learning.

Matt Lathrop

Justin Leuba

Justin Leuba, M.A. (they/them) is a philosophy instructor at Illinois Central College, the Instructional Designer of the inclusive teaching workshops, and the facilitator of the community of practice sessions designed as follow-up and follow-through to the workshops. They earned their Bachelor of Arts degree at Grinnell College in English and Philosophy, and their Master of Arts in Philosophy at Central European University with an emphasis in political thought. Justin has a background in OER development, previously working as the Instructional Designer for ICC’s nursing assistant OER textbook Caregiving for the Human Condition (2023), and is a 2023-2024 Open Educational Practices fellow supported by the Open Ed Group.

Dan Matthews

Walter Metz

Sean Murphy

Sean Murphy serves as the Head of Systems and Open Infrastructure at Illinois Tech's Paul V. Galvin Library.

Vince Mussehl

Jay Needham

Lonetta Oliver

Lonetta M. Oliver, Ph.D. (she/her) is the Dean Humanities at Illinois Central College. Formerly an Associate Professor of English and Professional Development Coordinator at St. Louis Community College’s Florissant Valley campus, for more than twelve years, she worked as a corporate trainer and professional development specialist for two international companies. She develops and facilitates soft-skills, diversity & inclusion, leadership, conflict resolution and emotional intelligence seminars for educational and healthcare environments. This East St. Louis native earned her Bachelor of Arts degree from Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville. She also earned a Masters in English with a focus in Rhetoric & Composition and a Ph.D. in English with a focus in African/African American and Post-Colonial Literature, both from Saint Louis University.

Geri Palmer

Alyssa Pasquale

Alyssa Pasquale (she/her) is a professor of physics and engineering at the College of DuPage in Glen Ellyn, IL. She teaches electrical engineering and conceptual physics classes. Alyssa has authored four OER textbooks and three OER lab manuals.

Dee Anna Phares

Mark Poepsel

Morgann Quilty

Morgann Quilty is the Dean of the Learning Commons at Parkland College. She first came to Parkland in 2019 as the Library Director, then shepherded the Library through its transition into the Learning Commons in 2021. The Learning Commons brings together wraparound academic support services to ensure student needs are met in a single physical and virtual environment. Prior to her role at Parkland, Morgann held roles in Illinois and Australia, working in medical, public, and academic libraries. She graduated from the University of Illinois Graduate School of Library and Information Science in 2003 and received a graduate certificate in University Teaching from the University of Notre Dame Australia.

Leslie Ross

Jacqueline Samuel

Isabel Scarborough

Isabel Scarborough is Professor of Anthropology and Chair of the Department of Arts, Media, and Social Sciences at Parkland College. She is also Faculty Affiliate for the Center for Global Studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her main professional interest is teaching and community outreach. Her work as a contributing editor for the Library of Congress and as an American Academy of Learned Societies fellow focuses on fostering qualitative research that can be applied to solve social issues. Her latest work focuses on making educational materials accessible to all students through open access.

Erin Shanle

Dr. Erin Shanle teaches biology at Lincoln Land Community College and served as a subject matter specialist for LLCC's Human Nutrition OER project through the Illinois SCOERs grant. She coordinates assessment for the Natural & Agricultural Sciences department and co-teaches an undergraduate research program in partnership with the University of Illinois Springfield. She has served as a professor at both universities and community colleges.

Robert Spahr

Rachelle Stivers

Judith Thorn

Dr. Judith Thorn is a Professor of Biology at Knox College. Her main research interests include early embryo development and the role of canines in ancient Greece. Inspired by her experience as a first-generation college student, Judy works with students, staff and faculty to remove barriers and promote access and inclusivity to ensure that all students can achieve their goals. She can be reached at jthorn@knox.edu.

Brent Todd

Judah Viola

Karen Vuckovic

Dr. Vuckovic is a Clinical Associate Professor at the College of Nursing, University of Illinois, Chicago. Her nursing career, which includes practice and research, has focused on acute care nursing, cardiology, and heart failure. For the past 12 years, she has taught Pharmacotherapeutics to graduate nursing students, combining her passion for teaching with clinical experience and knowledge.

Amanda Wiesenhofer