Master's student Ian Harmon has earned a fellowship from the Society for Scholarly Publishing. Out of 70 applicants, Harmon was chosen as one of twelve to receive the highly competitive fellowship. He will be provided with a wide range of career development opportunities that include attending SSP's 39th Annual Meeting from May 31-June 2 in Boston and being assigned an industry expert mentor.
When asked about the benefits of being a SSP Fellow, Harmon said, "I think the most significant benefit is having the opportunity to meet and learn from working professionals in the scholarly publishing industry. This will give me a chance to become more acquainted with the practical side of scholarly publishing issues in a way that's hard to get from a classroom setting. It will also provide me with some exposure to different perspectives in the industry. I have some understanding of the issues that are important to scholars, researchers, and librarians, and I think the SSP Fellowship will help me better appreciate what scholarly publishing looks like from the perspective of a publisher or a scholarly society."
Harmon's research interests include issues that lie at the intersection of scholarly publishing and communications as well as digital scholarship, especially the digital humanities. He wants to explore existing infrastructures used for disseminating research and the impact those infrastructures have on the questions scholars are able or unable to pursue. Harmon has aspirations to work in a digital scholarship or scholarly communications unit in an academic library. He holds a BA in philosophy from University of Missouri-Columbia, a MA in philosophy from University of Wyoming, and a PhD in philosophy from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.