Dr. Bill Cope — President

Bill Cope, Ph.D, has led Common Ground Publishing since 1984. He is a research professor in the Department of Educational Policy Studies at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, USA. He is a former First Assistant Secretary in the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet and Director of the Office of Multicultural Affairs in the Australian Federal Government. His academic research and writing crosses a number of disciplines, including history, education and sociology; and examines themes as varied as immigration, workplace change and literacy learning. For more information, please visit wwcope.com.

bill.cope@commongroundpublishing.com

Phillip Kalantzis-Cope — Director

Phillip Kalantzis-Cope has completed a Bachelor of Arts (Public Policy) with Honours at Monash University in Melbourne, and a Masters of Arts (international Relations) with Honours from The Australian National University in Canberra, Australia. He has worked in various research roles for the Victorian Justice Department and the City of Darebin and was the Co-Host for many years of a Greek/Australian Youth Hour on ZZZ Community Radio in Melbourne. Currently he is a Ph.D candidate at The New School For Social Research in New York City.

Paresh Shah — Director of South Asia

Paresh Shah is post graduate in Business and Entrepreneurial Management from Mumbai University, with further specialization in strategic management and corporate planning from Maastricht School of Management, The Netherlands. He comes with over 25 years versatile experience in new business establishment, international marketing and trade promotion in variety of industrial sectors. Paresh manages Common Ground’s Indian operations and initiates market development activities for Common Ground’s conferences and journals in Asian countries.

Karim Gherab-Martín – Director of Spain, Portugal and Latin America

Karim Gherab-Martín has completed a Master of Science (theoretical physics) and a Ph.D. (philosophy of science and technology) with Highest Honors from Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain, with further specialization at Harvard University (2 years) and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (1 year). He also has worked as an ICT consultant in Spain and Latin America for several years, and written strategic reports on digital libraries for the Government of Madrid. Karim manages Common Ground’s Spanish & Portuguese operations, and leads market development activities for Common Ground’s conferences, journals and books in Spain, Portugal and Latin America.

Conferences

Kathryn Sloane Weisbaum — Director of Conference Development

Kathryn collaborates with leadership and the conferences team to develop strategies for enhancing conference programming and for integrating CG publishing and software advancements into enriched experiences for conference participants. Kathryn earned her Ph.D. in Education (Measurement, Evaluation, and Statistical Analysis) at The University of Chicago, served on the faculty at the University of California at Berkeley, and directed evaluation and industry-education partnership projects at the Lawrence Hall of Science. Since moving to Champaign-Urbana, she has maintained an active consultancy in educational evaluation, collaborating with teachers, administrators, and academic researchers to design and implement methods for understanding the effects of program implementation. She also has a strong interest in the efficacy of service-based organizations and has worked with a number of non-profits to improve their fiscal management and administrative efficiency.

Emily Kasak — Conference Producer

Emily Kasak is a long-time member of our Common Ground conferences team. She has an Associate’s Degree in Science from Parkland College in Champaign, Illinois, USA and has studied Arts Management at the Liverpool Institute of the Performing Arts in Liverpool, UK. Throughout her studies and travels, Emily has helped organized events ranging from music and arts to politics and advocacy. Emily’s involvement in events planning began in 2004, with her work with local and national congressional campaigns. She also worked for four years as the organizer of an advocacy initiative for a national educational coalition and assisted with the coordination of their annual conference in Washington, DC. More recently, Emily’s focus has shifted towards work in the arts and entertainment. Her involvement as a freelance manager/administrator for independent music and arts organizations has allowed her to work with artists directly, at industry conferences, and international arts festivals.

Izabel Szary – Conference Producer

Izabel Szary holds a Master’s degree in Latin American and Caribbean Studies with a minor in Museum Studies from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. She received a BA from North Carolina State University in Anthropology with a minor in Biology. During her academic career she has lived abroad in Panajachel, Guatemala and Cuzco, Peru. Additionally, she has traveled to Australia as Student Ambassador with People to People. During her graduate career she assisted in the organization of several International conferences and teacher workshops. Since graduating she has maintained close ties to the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies at the U of I and assists them with various projects including brochure and poster design and the Annual Latin American and Caribbean Film Festival.

Abigail Manekin – Conference Producer

Originally from Baltimore, Maryland, Abigail inherited her love of learning and travel from her family. She received her Bachelor’s Degree in Dramatic Arts with a minor in History from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the UNC Honors Program in London. Abigail has organized and participated in theatrical performances, workshops, readings, and other events in venues all over the country, including Hartford, Baltimore, San Diego, and New York City. She is currently a resident of Champaign and remains active in local theater.

Homer (Tony) Stavely — Conference Program Development

Tony Stavely manages the development of the conference content and proposal review. He is Professor of Psychology Emeritus at Keene State College in New Hampshire, USA. He has a PhD from Princeton University and a BA from DePauw University. After training in animal learning and behavior, he shifted his attention to personality and social psychology and the history of psychology. His interests and activities have included environmental psychology, the educational uses of computers, technology and society, and issues of diversity and multiculturalism.

Publishing

Jamie Burns – Managing Editor

Jamie Burns helps coordinate the peer-review and production processes for Common Ground Publishing’s journals and book imprints. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in English and World Literature from Pitzer College in Claremont, CA and a Master’s degree in Comparative Literature from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. She has worked as a literature teacher, ESL instructor, translator, interpreter, and grant writer. She speaks Spanish, Portuguese, and French.

Brian Kornell – Managing Editor

Brian Kornell helps coordinate the submission and production processes for Common Ground Publishing’s journals and book imprints. He received his Bachelor’s degree in psychology from John Carroll University in Cleveland, Ohio and his MFA in creative writing (fiction) from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He has been an assistant editor and, more recently, the blog editor for Ninth Letter, a literary arts journal published in collaboration by the Creative Writing Department and the School of Art and Design at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is also co-editing an anthology of Midwest Gothic stories with the editor of Ninth Letter, Jodee Stanley.

Stephanie Turza – Managing Editor

Stephanie Turza helps coordinate the submission and production processes for Common Ground Publishing’s journals and book imprints. She received her Bachelor’s degree in English from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. After starting her publishing career at Dalkey Archive Press and honing her acquisition and editorial skills at W. W. Norton & Company, Stephanie joined Common Ground in 2010. In addition to her work as a Commissioning Editor, Stephanie writes book reviews for “The Front Table” and Booklist.

Accounts

Bill Jackson – Accounting Team Manager

Bill Jackson recently joined the staff of Common Ground Publishing, serving as the Accounting Team Manager. His education background includes degrees in Finance and Accountancy as well as an Executive MBA, all from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. He is the retired Chief Financial Officer of the State Universities Retirement System in Champaign. In addition, Bill has taught Accounting, Finance and Economics at Parkland College in Champaign for the past 30 years.

Research and Development

Dr. Kelly Searsmith – Director of Research and Development

Dr. Kelly Searsmith’s focus is envisioning transformations in scholarship, learning, and culture through emergent digital technologies. She currently coordinates US Department of Education Small Business Research Innovation grants projects totaling $1.7 million and provides product management and marketing management for CG Software across education, conferencing, and publishing. Formerly at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications, Dr. Searsmith was a member of the SEASR team (Software Environment for the Advancement of Scholarly Research), a Mellon-funded digital humanities project, and helped to launch and establish eDream (The Illinois Emerging Digital Research and Education in Arts Media Institute), serving as its first Assistant Director. She holds a BA in Psychology and English and an MA in English from Case Western Reserve University, and a Ph.D. in Victorian Literature from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She continues to be active in the humanities scholarly community. From 1987-2007, Dr. Searsmith taught literature and writing (academic, scientific, technical, professional, marketing, and public relations) in traditional and distance settings in higher education, working to integrate educational and new media technologies into instruction.

Software

Andrew Shirk – Director of Software Development

Andrew Shirk leads the software development efforts of the company. He has a decade of professional experience designing and developing client-side and server-side applications, primarily for the Java platform. Prior to joining Common Ground Publishing, he served within 3 different units of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Most recently, he was an Application Architect at the Graduate School of Library and Information Science (GSLIS) working on the Networked Environment for Music Analysis (NEMA) project, an open source software project funded by the Andrew W. Mellon foundation. He was also an Application Architect at the Center for Technology and Public Policy (CTPP) where he led the design of the U.S. Social Security Administration BOND (Benefit Offset National Demonstration) project. Before CTPP, he spent 6 years as a Research Programmer in the Automated Learning Group (ALG) of the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) where he participated in the design and development of a variety of data intensive research applications. Andrew holds a BFA (Bachelor of Fine Arts – focusing on Art & Technology) from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and an MFA (Master of Fine Arts – focusing on New Media) from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.