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New Associate Deans

The Libraries are delighted to welcome three new Associate Deans to our staff! You can learn a little more about them below.

Photo of Ryan Clement sipping from a green cup with green straw.

Ryan Clement, Associate Dean for Data, Digital Strategies, & Scholarly Communication

Areas of responsibility
I provide vision and leadership for our data services, scholarly communication services, digital scholarship support, library technology services, and our Digital Media Lab. As a major part of these areas of responsibility, I work with our open publishing services, which include our institutional and data repository, ScholarWorks; our open access journals; our open educational resources; and our image repository.

What excites you about UMass Amherst?
Having come from a much smaller, private institution, I’m very excited about the opportunity to work more with the communities we serve as a land grant public institution, as well as the increased opportunities for working with scholars doing innovative interdisciplinary research and teaching.

What excites you about living in Massachusetts?
I have lived in New England since 2015, though I was in Vermont until I came to UMass. I love the amount of local shopping and food production in New England, and especially the Pioneer Valley. I’m also excited to be around so many other amazing higher ed institutions here in the Valley as well.

What’s one thing you want people to know about you?
While I often seem like a very serious person, my favorite thing to do is to laugh.

Laura Soito, Associate Dean for Content and Discovery

Areas of Responsibility
Administrative leadership and strategy for partnerships, systems, and services to facilitate discovery, access, use, and management of information resources for the UMass Amherst community.

What excites you about UMass Amherst?
There were many things that drew me to UMass Amherst, though I am particularly excited about the Five College Consortium’s investment in the open-source library services platform FOLIO and to be a part of a passionate, collaborative, and inclusive library team.

What excites you about living in Massachusetts?
I love plants and am excited to explore the forests of Massachusetts and New England. I’m also looking forward to growing fruits and vegetables in a new environment.

What’s one thing you want people to know about you?
My organic chemistry lab partner became my partner for life. We’ve been married for 18 years and, including our move to Massachusetts, we have done four cross-country road trips with dogs.

Laura Soito posing in a forest near stone walls
Adam Ware looking at a cat sitting above them on the back of their chair

Adam M. Ware, Ph.D. (they/them), Associate Dean of Special Collections and University Archives

Areas of Responsibility
Oversight and strategy for the Robert S. Cox Special Collections & University Archives Research Center, the W. E. B. Du Bois Center, and the University Archives

What excites you about UMass Amherst?
I entered this field to engage in the important work of leveraging community memory in the service of decolonizing knowledge and realizing social justice, and UMass Amherst is at the center of these conversations in a number of ways. Every special collections with which I’ve been affiliated has had a different personality; at UMass Amherst I have the opportunity to be a part of something great, to make real change, and to contribute to the continued growth of a vital campus division in service to the University’s broader mission.

What excites you about living in Massachusetts?
As a ninth-generation Appalachian, the hills and valleys of western Massachusetts already feel like home to me. I’m looking forward to experiencing all four seasons, though I’m admittedly ambivalent about having moved up just in time for my first New England winter! Weather aside, I’m looking forward to putting down roots in a community whose values I share.

What’s one thing you want people to know about you? I am a first-generation college graduate, and I believe strongly that the work we produce and the knowledge we create at state universities is a public good.