Board Members
| Lily Compton | Valerie Emerson | Sally Evans | John Fudrow | Teri Green |
John H. Hagen | Erin Kaufman | Ruth Lu | G.W. Swicord | Kristin Terrill |
Lily Compton, Board Member
Assistant Director, Center for Communications Excellence
Iowa State University Graduate College
lcompton@iastate.edu
https://www.grad-college.iastate.edu/people/lily-compton
Lily Compton serves as the Assistant Director for Programming in the Center for Communication Excellence (CCE) at Iowa State University’s Graduate College. In this role, she oversees crucial aspects of graduate education, including thesis and dissertation guidelines, language proficiency assessment for international teaching assistants, and micro-credentials. With a strong background in education, Lily earned her B.Ed. in TESOL from the University of Southampton, UK, in 1996. She then gained valuable experience teaching English as a Second Language in Malaysia for four years. She later obtained her Master’s in TESOL in 2002 and a Ph.D. in Instruction and Curriculum in 2009 from Iowa State University. She has more than two decades of teaching experience including teaching graduate-level courses at various institutions, e.g. the University of Massachusetts Boston, Wilmington University, and Iowa State University. Her courses have covered applied linguistics, teacher education, higher education, and online or distance education.
Lily is passionate about supporting graduate students through effective educational practices in research integrity as well as academic and professional communication. She developed CCE’s innovative consultant training model, which integrates theoretical learning with practical experiences. Additionally, she has created training programs that certify oral communication consultants to help graduate students enhance their interpersonal and English-speaking skills. She also improved the workflow for Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Administration and supervises the continual efforts to provide graduate students with timely support in completing their theses, dissertations, and creative components.
Her research interests are at the forefront of educational innovation, focusing on:
• Best practices for GenAI literacy and its effective, efficient, and ethical use in scholarly pursuits
• Curriculum development to support graduate students from research to publication
• Professional development for graduate students and faculty in research integrity issues
Lily embraces innovative technology while staying mindful of its potential challenges. She’s passionate about creating effective support systems for graduate students, especially as they navigate the new world of GenAI tools. When she’s not transforming traditional learning pathways, Lily loves to travel and explore different cultures, bringing fresh perspectives to her work and life.
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Valerie Emerson, Board MemberETD Administrator/E-Resources Librarian
George Washington University Libraries
vaemerson@gmail.com
https://library.gwu.edu/etd
Valerie Emerson received her Master of Business Administration from The George Washington University in 1993 and her Bachelor of Arts in International Relations from the University of Delaware in 1979. She has an extensive background working in an academic library, both in technical and public services. She has been the Library ETD Administrator at The George Washington University since the ETD Program began in Fall 2008.
Coordinator, University Dissertation & Thesis Services
George Mason University Libraries
sevans13@gmu.edu
http://thesis.gmu.edu
Sally R. Evans received her Master of Library and Information Science from the University of South Carolina (USC) in 2010; her Master of Arts in English from (USC) in 1999; and her Bachelor of Arts in English from Virginia Tech in 1997. In the past, she has worked in publishing and event planning. She has been the Coordinator of University Dissertation & Thesis Services at George Mason University since January 2011, and she attended the inaugural USETDA Conference in Orlando in 2011. She lives in Northern Virginia with her husband and her chinchillas.
Sally has served as Chair of the USETDA ETD Formatting Group since 2021 and she presently serves as USETDA Board Treasurer.
John Fudrow, Board MemberRepository Librarian, Metadata and Discovery Unit
University of Pittsburgh Library System
jfudrow@pitt.edu
https://library.pitt.edu/john-fudrowJohn Fudrow is a Repository Librarian in the Metadata and Discovery Unit and the Resource Acquisition and Discovery Department for the University of Pittsburgh Library System. John received his MLIS from the University of Pittsburgh School of Information Sciences in 2007. His research interests span such issues as usability, reference services, library technology, and social tagging._
Teresa (Teri) Green, Board Vice Chair [she/her/hers]Director of Graduate Academic & Student Affairs
The University of Toledo, College of Graduate Studies
Teresa.Green@utoledo.edu
https://www.utoledo.edu/graduate
Teri Green spent the first 20 years of her adult life as a creative in the private sector in Ohio, Washington, and California. She returned to academia in 2004 with a B.A. in English: Creative Writing Concentration, working as a senior consultant in their Writing Center, composition instructor, and ESL tutor/consultant. She has been with the College of Graduate Studies (COGS) since 2010, creating, enhancing, and managing ETD services. Teri’s position has grown to include student success, orientation, assessment, and managing the annual calendar of Professional Development Programming, including the Three Minute Thesis® competition. She serves as COGS’ Diversity and ADA Liaison, and co-chairs the Diversity Committee. Teri has been a member of the USETDA since 2012 and on the BoD since 2018, as Treasurer. She has also served as Secretary on the NDLTD BoD since 2020, and as Chair/Vice-Chair, and member on the OhioLINK ETD Center Advisory Council since 2014.
Her research interests are in document design, rhetoric, educational technology, adult learning, and accessibility. She approaches her projects, research, and work through the lens of diversity, inclusion, equity, and belonging. Teri lives in Toledo, Ohio with her husband Dave and two rescue dogs—Cupcake and Daisy—where she is continually working on finishing her M.A. in English, M.E. in Higher Education, and the graduate certificate in Diversity in between taking every professional development course known to humankind and binging on Netflix.
Teri served as USETDA Treasurer from 2015- 2024, she is Co-Chair of the USETDA Remediation Committee and she presently serves as USETDA Board Vice-Chair.
John H. Hagen, Executive Director, Board ChairConsultant, Renaissance Scholarly Communications
johnhagen@usetda.org
www.renaissance-scholar.com/
John H. Hagen is an independent Scholarly Communications Consultant, based in Morgantown, West Virginia. Originally from Flint, Michigan, Hagen studied sociology at Michigan State University, where he launched his career at the MSU Libraries in 1987. Hagen’s extensive academic library background includes management the of Institutional Repository (IR) programs and coordination of the Electronic Thesis and Dissertation (ETD) program at the West Virginia University (WVU) Libraries from 1989–2011. He was also Chair of the WVU ETD/IR Task Force, where he guided the development of program policies and procedures. Hagen served on the Board of Directors for the Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations (NDLTD), an international non-profit consortium of hundreds of universities from 1998-2014. In 2002 he founded the Appalachian Regional ETD Consortium to promote ETD program implementation in the mountain states. In 2007 he received the Ohio ETD Leadership Award from the Ohio ETD Association (OETDA). In 2009 Hagen received the NDLTD’s International ETD Leadership Award. Hagen has served as an American Library Association legislative advocate to assist with legislative reform in support of open access to publicly funded research since 2012. Hagen was appointed in 2013 to serve on the Advisory Board for the Open Access Theses and Dissertations (OATD) project.
Hagen presently serves as Executive Director and founding member on the Board of Directors for the United States ETD Association (USETDA), a non-profit organization which promotes the adoption of state-wide ETD associations and support networks for libraries and graduate schools nationwide.
Erin A. Kaufman, Board Secretary
Thesis Manager
University of Iowa Graduate College
erin-kaufman@uiowa.edu
https://grad.uiowa.edu/staff
Erin Kaufman is the Thesis Manager at the University of Iowa, where she coordinates the thesis deposit and clearance process. She also works with the University of Iowa Libraries to help provide scholarly resources to thesis students. She holds a B.A. in Religion from Central College, a Master of Theological Studies degree from Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary, and a Ph.D. in Education Policy and Leadership Studies from the University of Iowa. Prior to beginning her position as Thesis Manager in 2015, she worked in academic editing and K-12 curriculum development.
Erin served as USETDA Board Secretary from 2022 – 2025.
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Ruth Lu, Board Member
Director of Thesis and Dissertation Services
Ohio University, Graduate College
ruthlu@ohio.edu
https://www.ohio.edu/graduate/current-students/thesis-dissertation-services
Dr. Ruth Lu serves as the Director of Thesis and Dissertation (TAD) Services at Ohio University, where she leads efforts to support graduate students through the final stages of their degree completion. Her primary responsibility is overseeing the university’s thesis and dissertation submission, review, and approval process. She is currently exploring options and tools to integrate TAD into a more modern and effective information system at Ohio University.
She is also the Principal Investigator of a $60,794 Konneker Grant-funded initiative to launch and lead a campus-wide collaborative effort—Dissertation Writing Support Program (2024-2026)—designed to foster writing productivity, shorten time to degree, and promote student success.
Outside of work, she enjoys making tea and admits she desperately needs to update her tea and calligraphy YouTube channel, @ruthlu7036.
Ruth presently serves as Co-Chair of the USETDA Community Engagement Group.
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G.W. Swicord, Board Member [he/him/his]
Complex Metadata Associate and Acting Theses and Dissertations Project Manager
University of Florida Libraries
gwswicord@ufl.edu
https://ufdc.ufl.edu/collections/ufetd
G.W.’s interest in digital content began before the .com era and led him to a bachelor’s in political science from New College of Florida. He earned his master’s in government at UT Austin, with a research focus on digital health information policy. Before joining the Libraries, he created and edited software training materials for a Microsoft vendor and taught as an adjunct associate professor at Santa Fe College.
He started with the Libraries as an assistant for the Retrospective Theses and Dissertations Scanning (RTDS) project and eventually became project manager for all projects required for degree completion coming into the UF Electronic Theses and Dissertations (UFETD) collection. In addition to managing the long-term RTDS project, his duties as Theses and Dissertations Project Manager included acting is primary workflow contact for ProQuest, building and maintaining relationships with graduate academic units that produce non-traditional ETDs, coordinating with the Graduate School regarding both policy and procedures, and managing content, metadata, and communications for the Undergraduate Honors Theses collection.
Currently, his focus is on developing and improving workflows and automation for metadata creation and remediation across a variety of collections, and he is solely responsible for metadata work for the UFETD collection. He also continues to provide guidance and assistance to the team handling production work for the University of Florida Institutional Repository (UFIR).
G.W. presently serves as technical consultant for the USETDA, assisting with Website content creation and management.
Kristin Terrill, Board Member
Senior Program Specialist for Graduate Scholarly Activities
Iowa State University Graduate College
Center for Communication Excellence
kterrill@iastate.edu
Kristin Terrill is the Senior Program Specialist for Graduate Scholarly Activities in the Center for Communication Excellence at the Iowa State University Graduate College. Her research areas include English for academic purposes, discourse analysis, natural language processing, corpus linguistics, technical writing, technical editing, knowledge management, English literature. She received her MA Professional Writing and her B.A. English from Northern Arizona University.
Kristin presently serves as Co-Chair of the USETDA Community Engagement Group.
Board Members/Contact Information