Liberty Chapter, Medical Library Association

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Keynote Speaker: Ken Haller

Ken Haller, MD, is a Professor of Pediatrics at the Saint Louis University School of Medicine and SSM Cardinal Glennon Children’s Medical Center. He is Past President of the Missouri Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, and he currently serves on the Arts and Education Council of Greater St. Louis where he helped to create the new Arts and Healing Initiative, to fund groups that utilize arts to promote health and healing. He is also a writer, actor, and cabaret artist and appears regularly in local and national media to advocate for child health, LGBTQ health issues and the arts. Ken Haller is especially interested in expanding health care for marginalized communities, ameliorating toxic stress in children, and educating the medical community and the general public about cultural competency, health literacy, vaccine hesitancy, the effects of media on children, and the special health needs of LGBTQ youth.

Especially during this past year, we have all experienced how difficult it can be to explain complex scientific concepts to a lay audience. As people who work in the sciences, we tend to think that reproducible evidence is always convincing and compelling. However, when people come to us with concerns that sound fact-based, they are quite often coming from an emotional place. By recognizing and affirming these emotions, we may be able to get to deeper levels of communication and eventually be able to reach the realm of facts. Ken Haller had spoken extensively on communication in the medical and scientific community, especially around vaccine hesitancy. By combining the techniques of motivational interviewing, Carl Rogers’ client-centered therapy, and the improvisational theater “Yes &” response, Ken will help us craft more effective messaging as we interact with those without a background in the sciences.

Dr. Kris Alpi - MLA President

Kristine M. Alpi is University Librarian and Associate Professor with a Joint Appointment in the Department of Medical Informatics & Clinical Epidemiology at Oregon Health & Science University, Portland, Oregon. She remains Adjunct Assistant Professor of Population Health & Pathobiology at North Carolina State University (NCSU). Previous leadership positions include Director of the William Rand Kenan, Jr. Library of Veterinary Medicine at NCSU and Associate Library Director at the rank of Associate Librarian (and Lecturer in Public Health in the Department of Public Health) at the Weill Medical College of Cornell University in New York City. Alpi holds a Masters of Library Science from Indiana University, a Masters of Public Health from Hunter College, City University of New York, and a PhD in Educational Research & Policy Analysis from NCSU.

A 1997-98 Associate Fellow of the National Library of Medicine (NLM), Alpi served as an Educational Collaborator with the National Center for Biotechnology Information, steering committee member of the Partners in Information Access for the Public Health Workforce, member of the NLM Planning Panel on Clinical & Public Health Information Systems for the 21st Century, and member of the NLM Biomedical Library and Informatics Review Committee Study Section from 2011-2015 where she continues as an ad-hoc reviewer and chairs Special Emphasis Panels. She chairs the Education Working Group of the American Medical Informatics Association. A Distinguished member of the Academy of Health Information Professionals, Alpi taught in the Medical Library Association (MLA) Continuing Education program, previously chaired the Research Section and Public Health/Health Administration Section of MLA, served on the MLA Board of Directors from 2014-2016, and has mentored two MLA Rising Stars. She took office as President of MLA in May 2021 and was also elected as a Fellow of MLA in 2021.

Kris Alpi photo

Tony Nguyen - NNLM Region 1

Tony Nguyen, MLIS, AHIP, is the Executive Director at the Network of the National Library of Medicine (NNLM), Region 1, in the Health Sciences and Human Services Library at the University of Maryland, Baltimore. Tony oversees the planning, implementation, management, and evaluation of the overall regional medical library program, oversees the day-to-day operations of the office, and identifies regional opportunities to support NLM priorities and NNLM initiatives.

Jessica Kilham - NNLM Region 7

Jessica Kilham is the Associate Director of the National Network of Libraries of Medicine Region 7 (NNLM Region 7) located at the Lamar Soutter Library at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. In this role, Jessica oversees the NNLM Region 7 in its support of the National Library of Medicine to provide equal access to biomedical information to all and improve everyone’s ability to make informed decisions about their health.