Member Outreach Team

Portrait Image of Lisa Larson Lisa Larson, Senior Director, Outreach & Engagement

Lisa Larson is the Senior Director of Membership Development at Lyrasis. In this role, she leads the Membership program, which includes Outreach & Engagement and Research, Discovery & Impact (RD&I), and is responsible for ensuring that membership remains a meaningful, mission-driven foundation for everything Lyrasis does.Lisa’s work connects institutional insight to organizational strategy, shaping a membership program that gives libraries, archives, and museums collective strength. Through shared expertise, trusted partnerships, and member-exclusive benefits, Lyrasis membership helps institutions reduce costs, expand access, and increase their capacity to lead—so organizations of all sizes can achieve greater impact, sustainability, and influence than they could alone.
Lisa oversees global outreach teams that build strong relationships with member institutions and bring critical insight back into the organization to inform programs, services, and priorities. Through RD&I, she leads a team of experts advancing assessment, research, consultative services, and grants administration – supporting libraries and cultural heritage organizations as they understand their environments, articulate their value, and make informed, future-focused decisions. Together, these functions ensure Lyrasis remains responsive, adaptive, and aligned with the evolving needs of the field.
With more than 25 years of experience working with libraries, archives, and museums, Lisa brings deep expertise in relationship-centered leadership, strategic program development, and sustainable growth. She is especially committed to ensuring that smaller or less-resourced institutions have access to the same opportunities, insight, and collective influence as larger organizations—strengthening the cultural heritage community as a whole.
Lisa champions membership not as a transaction, but as a transformation: a catalyst for community, shared learning, and collective impact. She holds a B.A. in Communications from Florida Atlantic University and was accepted into the MLIS program at University of South Florida. She has spent over a decade at Lyrasis advancing a membership model that integrates engagement, research, and strategy in service of the public good.
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Portrait Image of Kathryn Edwards Kathryn Edwards, Member Outreach Representative, Mid-Atlantic & Great Lakes

Kathryn graduated from UNC Greensboro with a BS in Textiles and Merchandising. She worked in the retail industry for the first half of her career in sales, sales management, and buying. She moved into outside sales and has worked in various industries, including digital and print media, pharmaceuticals, and nonprofit business development. She spent the past eight years working at SAGE Publishing and worked on all four sales teams, which included Commercial Sales, Institutional Sales, Library Sales, and College Sales. Schedule to meet with Kathryn.

Portrait Image of Vanessa Gamet Vanessa Gamet, Outreach, West

Vanessa Gamet is the Lyrasis Member Outreach Representative for the western United States, where she works directly with academic and public libraries to translate member priorities into sustainable digital strategies. Her background spans roles as a collections librarian and commercial ebooks sales director, giving her a dual perspective on the challenges libraries face and the market forces that shape digital content ecosystems. She has experience in digital collections, licensing, OER advocacy, and library sustainability. Schedule to meet with Vanessa.

Portrait Image of Teddy Gray Teddy Gray, Regional Outreach and Engagement Manager - MLIS

Teddy Gray, who serves Lyrasis members in the South, brings over 20 years experience of working in libraries. Before joining Lyrasis, he spent 14 years at Duke University in a variety of positions, including science liaison, branch manager, collection development librarian, and head of the acquisitions department. This unique blend of experience gives him a deep understanding of the challenges libraries face on both the public and technical services side. His strong understanding of the resource lifecycle, including budgeting, selection, licensing, and access, allows him to effectively help members in their eResource acquisitions. He is especially committed to ensuring that Lyrasis members get the most value out of their membership. A native of Louisiana, Teddy received a BS in Geography from Louisiana State University and an MS in Geography and MLIS from the University of Tennessee.

Portrait Image of Michele Mennielli Michele Mennielli, Director Global Outreach

Michele Mennielli is Director of Global Outreach at Lyrasis, where he leads international engagement and partnerships to support the preservation and open accessibility of cultural heritage and academic resources worldwide. His work focuses on expanding global collaboration, membership, and strategic relationships across research, library, and cultural heritage communities.

He has held leadership and advisory roles in several international organizations, including OpenAIRE (Advisory Board Member), euroCRIS (as Board Member and Executive for External Relations), ORCID (Chair of the Repositories Task Force), and EUNIS (Secretary and Board Member). Michele has also served on Program and Organizing Committees for major international conferences such as EDUCAUSE, Open Repositories, and many national events worldwide.

Portrait Image of Kait Neese Kait Neese, Outreach, South

Kait Neese serves as the Member Outreach Representative for the South region at Lyrasis (FL, AL, GA, MS, LA, AR, TN, NC, SC, PR, VI), where she works directly with member institutions. With over 15 years of experience in academic and digital publishing, Kait brings a strong background in strategic partnerships, consortia relations, and open access initiatives. Prior to joining Lyrasis, Kait has held roles at Springer Nature and Taylor & Francis. She has been a featured speaker at international publishing conferences and previously served on the Advisory Board for the OA Switchboard and as a Library Board Trustee member for Martin County, Florida. She holds an MBA from Florida Atlantic University with a focus in information systems and marketing strategy. Kait is passionate about building sustainable models that increase access to knowledge and strengthen the work of libraries, archives, and cultural heritage organizations across the South. Schedule to meet with Kait.

Laura Sinhur, Outreach, Northeast

Laura serves as the outreach advocate & representative to the Northeast region (CT, MA, ME, NH, NJ, NY, RI, and VT). She has extensive archival background, having worked in corporate archiving and museum curation for eight years. She has led and participated in a multi-million-dollar digitization program, supervised archival repository migrations, and obtained customization skills in Vancouver, BC for proprietary software. Laura received FEMA Incident Command Certification in 2018 on behalf of the Pennsylvania Cultural Response Team, training in the disaster prevention, mitigation, and recovery for cultural heritage institutions. She has extensive knowledge in digital preservation of at-risk cultural heritage, particularly in areas of conflict. Laura is passionate about digital volunteerism: a long-standing volunteer with SUCHO (Saving Ukrainian Cultural Heritage Online), a Smithsonian Digital Volunteer, and the Community Contributor for ArchivesSpace's Ukrainian translation. Schedule to meet with Laura.