2014 Conference—Speaker Biographies
Nan Badgett, dba Wordability, has provided indexing and editorial services to publishers, corporate clients, and authors since 1991. She has a Bachelor of Arts degree in French and was trained in indexing through the USDA Graduate School. Nan was a founding member of the former Arizona Chapter of the American Society for Indexing and served terms as both its president and secretary. She is the 2014 committee chairperson for the ASI/EIS Publishing Award for Excellence in Indexing.
John B. Bryans is Editor-in-Chief and Publisher of the Book Publishing Division of Information Today, Inc. (ITI) and its sister company, Plexus Publishing, Inc. Since 1979 JB has worked in book publishing as an editor, book packager, and publisher. He began his career in the world of New York mass-market publishing, specializing in historical fiction and popular nonfiction before moving into business, technology, scholarly, and association publishing in the late 1980s. In 1995, at Online Inc., JB launched CyberAge Books—a popular line of titles for information professionals and business internet users. In 1998 he joined ITI where he publishes in such genres as library and information science and technology, cyberculture, education and careers in the information professions, networking and customer engagement, knowledge management, business intelligence, and indexing. The regional (Plexus) program encompasses history, literature, mystery/suspense, nature, and ecology. In 2001 JB acquired and published his first New York Times bestseller, Boardwalk Empire by Nelson Johnson, which inspired an Emmy-winning HBO TV series from executive producers Martin Scorsese and Terence Winter.
Michelle Combs has a BA in History, an MA in Education, and an MS LIS. Michele is Lead Archivist at the Special Collections Research Center at Syracuse University and has been freelance indexing since 2005. Michele has twenty years' experience with XML, XSL and data conversion. She is a member of ASI's Board and Digital Trends Task Force as well as a co-chair of the IDPF's Indexes Working Group.
Enrique Corrales holds a degree in veterinary science. He has worked as a translator and tour guide for an NGO in Nicaragua, and has also developed a micro-loan program for the organization. Enrique plays guitar, piano, and drums. He also composes and writes music.
Colleen Dunham began indexing in 1979. She has fallen in love with Nicaragua.
Linda S. Dunn has been a periodical indexer for over thirty years and teaches a professional development workshop on Periodical/Database Indexing for Simmons College Graduate School of Library and Information Science. Her chapter, "The Heart of the Matter: an Introduction to the Challenges of Periodical Indexing," appears in the recently published Index It Right! Advice from the Experts, Volume 3 edited by Enid L. Zafran.
Linnea Dwyer is originally from northern California, but now lives on the Space Coast of Florida with her husband, children, two cats, and dog. She was very happy to discover the world of indexing. It was a perfect way to productively use her degree in Fine Art with her love of reading. She has been indexing since 2007 after completing the USDA Graduate program with Kari Kells, mostly working on scholarly texts but would like to branch out to other disciplines. She is also the current treasurer of the Mid and South Atlantic Chapter of ASI. When she is not indexing, she enjoys hiking, bicycling, kayaking, doing stuff with her family, and, of course, reading.
S. Anne Fifer is a freelance indexer providing back-of-book indexing since 2008. She teaches medical terminology courses at a local community college to fill in between indexing jobs. Her education includes medicine with specialty in neurology, and epileptology. Areas of interest include neuroanatomy and neurosciences as well as general medicine and health sciences, and experimental/physiological psychology. Other special interests and hobbies include wine, food, cooking/culinary arts, gardening, organic farming, art/crafts, birds, and pets.
Ruby Gutierrez is the Associate Editor of the Hispanic American Periodicals Index, an online source on Latin America, published by the Latin American Institute, UCLA. She has published research on Latin American electronic journals and back-of-the-book indexing practices in Latin America. She is currently the leader of the Special Interest Group Periodical/Database Indexing of the American Society of Indexing.
Matt and Ted Lee. Siblings Matt and Ted grew up in Charleston, South Carolina. When they left to attend colleges in the Northeast, they so missed the foods of their hometown that they founded The Lee Bros. Boiled Peanuts Catalogue, a mail-order catalogue for southern pantry staples and, of course, boiled peanuts. When an editor of a travel magazine asked them to write a story about road-tripping their home state in search of great food, they embarked on a second career as food journalists and cookbook authors. Their first two books, The Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook and The Lee Bros. Simple Fresh Southern, have won a combined five James Beard and IACP Awards. Their third cookbook, The Lee Bros. Charleston Kitchen, was released in March. Ted lives with his wife, the artist E.V. Day, in Brooklyn, NY; Matt, his wife Gia, and their two sons live in Charleston.
Fred Leise serves as the lead content strategist for Potomac Indexing and is an independent taxonomy design consultant, with such clients as HP, Disney, and Oprah.com. He is an ICI-Certified Indexer and has worked as a back-of-book indexer since 1995, specializing in scholarly works in the humanities, as well as East Asian history and culture, international relations, and technical publications.
Naomi Linzer has been sole proprietor of J. Naomi Linzer Indexing Services for over ten years. Many indexers have a rich and varied former life, and here is a sampling of hers. After completing a B.A. in Anthropology, she took time off to travel, live on a kibbutz and work on an archeology dig in Israel. Upon Naomi’s return to the United States, she completed an MA in Anthropology with Specialization in Museum Conservation. She worked in conservation of ethnographic objects at the Smithsonian Institute, the Field Museum of Natural History, as well as the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and a small textile collection of Judaica in Los Angeles. After another traveling stint overseas in Europe, the Middle East and East Africa, Naomi worked in customer service at Computerland Corporate headquarters, and served in the Peace Corps in the Caribbean. While reading a book on best jobs for the 90s, she discovered indexing, completed the USDA Graduate School Basic Indexing course, and hung out her indexer shingle. Naomi– now indexing on the Coastal Bend– indexes both scholarly and trade books for many of the university presses, and, these days, is usually hired directly by authors. And, oh—she completely loves her job!
Mendel Mendoza works from his hometown of El Sauce, Nicaragua. Although he has a degree in industrial engineering, he really has enjoyed doing index work. Mendel serves as a translator and tour guide for interns and volunteers with the Enlace Project, an NGO in Nicaragua.
Kendra Millis got her start in indexing by taking the UC-Berkeley course and then marketing like crazy. Prior to moving to the publishing world, Kendra worked in the field of international education. She has degrees in Russian and Polish literature, and has done graduate work in English literature and social philosophy. Having lived in a number of places around the country and overseas, she is pleased that her indexing career has allowed her to permanently return to her home state, Maine.
Dorota T. Ponikiewska, M.L.S., librarian, database indexer, project manager. She works for Cygnus as the Project Manager (2002–Present) for the National Library of Medicine Indexing project. She now supervises 23 MEDLINE indexers. Ms. Ponikiewska also acts as Cygnus Team Lead (2010-Present) on the National Library at NIH, Health Pandemic Influenza Digital Archive Project –where she provides project manages and supervises the creation of bibliographic citations and the complete indexing of more than 3000 ancient documents on the topic of influenza by Cygnus’ in-house staff. She oversees the entire process of data creation, generates the reach indexing (using the MESH criteria), originates a new PIDA Thesaurus, and provides quality control of the entire process.
David K. Ream is Leverage Technologies’ chief consultant for publishers. He has a M.S. degree in Computer Science from Case Western Reserve University. Mr. Ream has spent over 30 years working with publishers in the areas of typesetting design and production, database creation, editorial systems, and electronic publication design and production.
Alice Redmond-Neal has been wordsmithing on taxonomies since 1995, applying degrees in cognitive psych and speech & language pathology. She has produced taxonomies and full thesauri in technical domains and general interest topics. Her editorial activity spans over 50 projects, including developing knowledge domains, abstracting, indexing, and term mapping. She also trains clients and coworkers in the use of Data Harmony content management software. Alice is a member of SLA's Taxonomy Division and has published papers and presented workshops at Taxonomy Boot Camp, SLA, the American Society for Indexing, ASIS&T, and other venues. Much of her spare time is spent with her trusty mutt, planning her next travel destination.
Pat Rimmer, after leaving her job as a Cardio-Pulmonary technician, began indexing Christian literature for her pastor in 1995. As she loved reading and found indexing stimulating, she took the USDA Indexing Course and joined ASI in 1998. Margie Towery took Pat under her wing and helped her get started in scholarly indexing. She immediately participated in a committee and lead a conference presentation on Environmental indexing issues in 2000. As Heartland Chapter vice president and president, she, along with the help of others, was able to maintain the integrity of the Heartland Chapter through some lean years. She has been indexing children's books, textbooks, history, and scholarly works since 1998.
Sheila M. Ryan, owner of Ryan Indexing, has been indexing professionally since 2007. A member of the American Society for Indexing since 2004, she served as Treasurer for both the Golden Gate and Pacific Northwest Chapters of ASI. She is also a member of ASI's Digital Trends Task Force. Sheila encourages indexers to add linked indexing skills to their repertoire and to talk with clients about including quality linked indexes in eBooks. Born and raised in Wisconsin, she currently lives in Portland, Oregon, where she enjoys sweep rowing on the Willamette River.
Catherine Sassen is Principal Catalog Librarian at the University of North Texas Libraries, and a freelance indexer. She has published journal articles in Key Words and The Indexer.
Kay Schlembach has based her professional life on service, both to clients and the indexing profession. Since 1996, she has indexed hundreds of books and manages projects as a senior managing partner for Potomac Indexing (www.potomacindexing.com). Large, multivolume projects are a specialty, as well as business, professional, and school publishing texts. For more than a decade, Kay taught the acclaimed Practical Introduction to Indexing workshop, as well as serving for five years on the ASI board of directors. During her ASI service, Kay was instrumental in the development, adoption, and implementation of the ASI Training in Indexing distance learning course. She works full-time as an indexer and project manager while continuing to develop her taxonomy application.
Donna Shear began her professional career as an illustrations assistant for National Geographic Magazine: she went on from there to become senior researcher in their books division, including editing page proofs and generating indexes. In 1983 Donna left Washington for New York, to complete Columbia University's Master's program in English and Comparative Literature, and in the early 1990s attended the doctoral program in American History at University of Maryland, where she was a staff editor for The American Historical Association’s Guide to Historical Literature, published by Oxford University Press. In 2007, upon attending Kay Schlembach’s Indexing Essentials Workshop in 2007 in Philadelphia, Donna joined ASI. Shortly thereafter she served as chair of the Mid and South-Atlantic chapter, organizing their Fall 2012 fall program in Reston. More recently---in addition to the working with the Best Practices committee---Donna has begun serving as a grader for the ASI Training Course in Indexing.
Margie Towery has focused on indexing scholarly texts for two decades. She won the H. W. Wilson Award for Excellence in Indexing in both 2002 and 2008. Margie also indexed both the 15th and 16th editions of the Chicago Manual of Style. Among her recent essays are “The Quality of a Scholarly Index” (in Indexing Specialties: Scholarly Books), “Creating Elegant Subheadings” (with Victoria Agee, in Index It Right: Vol. 2), and her ongoing series, “Creating Better Indexes” in the Heartland Chapter newsletter. Margie has been noted for her enthusiastic and energetic presentations and her passion for quality indexing.
Pilar Wyman is a member of the ASI Digital Trends Task Force (DTTF), which was a key player in the recent International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF) inclusion of indexes in the EPUB3 standard, and continues to work with the IDPF Indexes Working Group, focusing on active indexes and search integration in eBooks and eContent. Pilar is also the immediate past president of ASI, and has been writing indexes for over 23 years for a variety of media, preferably in med-tech subjects.
Enid L. Zafran has been indexing since 1975; her business, Indexing Partners, established in 1989, deals with many scholarly presses in the fields of literary criticism, history, biographies, art and architecture, and law/government. Enid has been a frequent presenter at ASI conferences and local chapters. She also writes a series of articles in Key Words, dealing with indexing style matters.