Alumni Updates
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Justin Otto
MLIS, 2003
Justin is serving as the interim dean of libraries at Eastern Washington University.
Laura Simeon
MLIS, 2003
Laura is the Librarian & Diversity Coordinator at a K-8 independent school in Bellevue, Washington, and a guest blogger for Lee & Low Books. She is currently serving on the 2017 jury for the Kirkus Prize for Young Readers’ Literature, and was recently elected to the Coretta Scot King Book Award Jury for 2019-20.
John Vosmek
MLIS, 2003
John is the manager of Resource Services at Hogan Lovells US LLP, a global law firm, where he oversees all digital and print collection management, cataloging, and serials processing for its Washington, D.C. headquarters and its 18 offices in the Americas. He also works on taxonomy development and other projects for the firm's intranet. He lives inside the Beltway in Hyattsville, Maryland, with his wife, Maureen, and kids, Mason and Mimi.
Sarah Wakefield
MLIS, 2003
Sarah is working as the Primary Years Program librarian at the International School of Phnom Penh in Cambodia.
Loree Hyde
MLIS, 2002
After many years with Oregon Health & Science University Library, Loree has recently moved to Kaiser Permanente as the manager of library services in Oregon. Her work as the Nursing Liaison at OHSU, as well as her involvement with Nursing at KP, helped to inform her contributions to a recently published book, titled "The Intersection: Where Evidence Based Nursing and Information Literacy Meet," edited by Sue Phelps, Julie Planchon Wolf and Loree Hyde, and published by Elsevier. The book describes how the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) Framework and Information literacy Competency Standards for Nursing (also written by Phelps, Planchon Wolf and Hyde) mesh with nursing education and professional standards, thus speaking to the information needs of nurses, nurse educators, and librarians who support nursing programs.
Jenny Abdo
Informatics, 2002
Jenny and her husband Jeff celebrated the birth of their daughter, Sydney Renee Abdo, in October 2013. Jenny also sits on the Informatics Advisory Board.
Jennifer Bisson
MLIS, 2002
As of 2025, Jennifer was working as a teen services librarian at the Greenwood Branch of the Seattle Public Library. She was also volunteering with the Northwest Immigrants Rights Project to create social services information pathways for the clients, lawyers and social workers within the youth division.
Her step-son who resides in Germany recently got married and in the summer will be going to Berlin to the wedding party. On her weekends off, she often takes friends out to her place on Harstine Island. She also got an electric bike this year for commuting on days when the Seattle rain isn't too much.
Laura Dushkes
MLIS, 2002
Laura serves on the Library Council of Washington, representing special libraries.
Ada Emmett
MLIS, 2002
Ada has been working for the University of Kansas (KU) since 2002, becoming tenured in 2008 and and moving into her dream job at KU in 2009, leading the scholarly communications program. In 2013, she became head of the (newly named) David Shulenburger Office of Scholarly Communication & Copyright.
She publishes and presents on scholarly communication and open access and advocates for open access on the national level. Ada has been a presenter for the ACRL Scholarly Communication Roadshow and currently serves on the ARL's Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC) Steering Committee.
Layne Foit
MLIS, 2002
Layne is working as a Principal User Experience Designer at REI (Recreational Equipment Inc.).