The Digital Preservation Coalition is pleased to announce its international panel of expert judges for 2026:
Matthew Burgess
State Library of New South Wales
Matthew Burgess is the Lead Digital Archivist at the State Library of NSW, where he manages the preservation and accessibility of the Library's born-digital collections. Passionate about sharing knowledge and good practice in digital preservation, he leads the Digital Preservation Network for National and State Libraries Australasia (NSLA), represents NSLA as the Vice-Chair of the Digital Preservation Coalition’s Australasia and Asia Pacific Sub-Committee, and is a co-organiser for the Australasia Preserves digital preservation community of practice.
Gustavo Castener Marquardt
International Council on Archives
Gustavo Castañer is a professional archivist and records manager. He currently works as Unit Head of Information Resources and Services at the Asian Development Bank (Manila). He has worked previously in archives and records management of the United Nations, International Monetary Fund, European Commission, Council of the European Union and European External Action Service, as well as Spanish State Archives and the National Archives of Catalonia. He is especially interested in archives of international organizations, collection outreach, archival education and the use of archives to promote accountability and the defense of Human Rights. Within ICA, he has served previously as Chair of the Section of International Organizations and board member of the Section of Archives and Human Rights.
Fatima Darries
University of South Africa (UNISA)
Fatima leads and manages strategic Library initiatives in research data curation, digitisation of heritage and special collections, as well as metadata description of commercial and digital information resources at Unisa Library and Information Services. Her career has spanned both client and technical services in the Academic Library Sector and she continues to serve as South African country editor on E-LIS, the international archive for Library and related sciences, as well as on the Management and Government Subcommittee of the Digital Preservation Coalition.
Previously, Fatima served two terms of office on the Board of the National Library of South Africa, as well as serving the higher education sector with 10-year service as Board member on HERS SA, a network for women in higher education. She has served in various portfolios in the Library and Information Association of South Africa (LIASA).
Mihaiela Donisa
Bank for International Settlements
Mihaiela is a Records and Archives Expert at the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) since 2019, leading projects on digitisation, access and digital preservation of the institutions' collections. The BIS is an international organisaiton established in 1930 and its mission is to support central banks' pursuit of monetary and financial stability through international cooperation, and to act as a bank for central banks.
Mihaiela holds a MA in Archives and Records Management from UCL and has previously worked in archives and records management roles for European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, BBC and the European Medicines Agency.
Lisa Griffith
Digital Repository of Ireland (DRI)
Lisa Griffith is Director at the Digital Repository of Ireland (DRI). She has worked at DRI since 2017, holding a range of senior roles including Membership Manager and Programme Manager. Lisa has spoken nationally and internationally on DRI’s work and the topics of digital preservation, archives, and digital Infrastructures. She has contributed to several National Open Research Forum (NORF) committees and served as chair of the NORF PID Strategy Working group from 2023 to 2024. Lisa holds a PhD in history from Trinity College Dublin.
Hilary Hanahoe
Research Data Alliance (RDA)
Hilary Hanahoe is the Secretary General of the global Research Data Alliance (RDA), an international, non-profit, volunteer organisation addressing the need for open and interoperable sharing and re-use of research data and building the social, technical and cross-disciplinary links to enable such sharing and re-use on a global scale. Currently, RDA has a community of over 12,500 individual data professionals from 145 countries collaborating on different open science and open data activities, operating under six fundamental guiding principles of openness, consensus, harmonisation, community-driven, inclusivity, not for profit and technology neutrality. Hilary is responsible for the financial and organisational sustainability of RDA on an international level and is the RDA Foundation CEO. She is passionate about the work of the Research Data Alliance and its vibrant, volunteer community working to enable the open sharing and reuse of data across the globe
Haliza Jailani
National Library Board Singapore
Previously responsible for the digital infrastructure programme at the National Library Board (NLB) of Singapore, Haliza worked on digital preservation early in 2008 implementing Ex Libris’ Rosetta and operationalising digital preservation processes. She is currently Deputy Director of Resource Discovery & Management in NLB, overseeing a team of librarians responsible for cataloguing and knowledge organisation systems, including metadata for digital preservation and linked data for discovery.
William Kilbride
Digital Preservation Coalition (DPC)
Executive Director for the DPC, William is the Acting Overall Chair of the Judging Panel. In his current role at the head of the DPC, he provides training and support to members as well as supporting the digital preservation community through advocacy work and enabling strategic partnerships. William is a prolific writer and speaker on the subject of digital preservation and has many years’ experience in the field, having previously held senior positions at Glasgow Museums and the Archaeology Data Service.
Nicola Laurent
Australian Society of Archivists
Nicola Laurent is the Senior Project Archivist on the Find & Connect web resource at the University of Melbourne. Nicola is the President of the Australian Society of Archivists, the International Council on Archives' New Professionals Programme Coordinator and a member of the National Archives of Australia’s Advisory Council. She is also a PhD candidate in the School of Social Work at the University of Melbourne undertaking research into the prevalence and impact of trauma in archives.
Thomas Ledoux
Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF)
Thomas is the coordinator of digital production at the Bibliothèque nationale de France / National Library of France (BnF), where he has work as a software engineer for over 25 years. He has always been interested in digital objects, ranging from access on public workstations to his involvement in the BnF's Scalable Preservation & Archiving Repository (SPAR). He regularly collaborates on various open source software, such as Jhove or Archifiltre.
April Miller
World Bank Group
A graduate of the University of British Columbia’s Masters of Archives Studies program, April has worked in the field of archives and records management since 2000. This includes working as a Government Records Archivist at the National Archives of Canada, and now as the Manager for the programs, services and staff of the World Bank Group Archives & Records unit (ITSAR). Established in 1945, the World Bank Group is an international organization whose aim is to reduce poverty and promote shared prosperity around the world, and whose archival holdings illuminate the Bank’s engagement with its member countries to promote economic development. April has had the benefit of working through all records management and archives functions at the Bank, and delights in leading a group of dedicated professionals into our digital preservation endeavour.
Jenny Mitcham
DPC
Jenny began her career getting muddy and wet on archaeological digs so rapidly moved to working in an office with computers. This is how she got into digital preservation. After working for 15 years as a digital archivist at the University of York, she is now Head of Good Practice and Standards at the Digital Preservation Coalition where she has been supporting members with various strategic and practical challenges, and developed the DPC's Rapid Assessment Model (RAM). She also works closely with the UK Nuclear Decommissioning Authority.
Jo Ana Morfin
Memórica - Archivo General de la Nación
Jo Ana is a conservator of time-based media and works in the field of digital heritage. Her research focuses on the challenges in preserving contemporary cultural and social legacies rooted in ephemera and obsolete technologies. She works with cultural organizations and small communities of practice to implement best practices for digital preservation.
Sonia Ranade
The National Archives UK
Dr Sonia Ranade is Head of Digital Archiving at The National Archives (UK), with responsibility for digital services to records creators in government (for selection and transfer), preservation of the digital Public Record and access to born digital records. Her research interests include probabilistic approaches to archival description, digital preservation risk and developing new access routes for digital archives. Sonia holds a PhD in Information Science.
Arif Shaon
Qatar National Library
Arif Shaon is the Head of Digital Curation, Preservation, and Access at Qatar National Library, where he leads the strategic and operational work for the long-term curation, preservation, and accessibility of the library’s digital collections. He has previously held key roles at UNSW Library at the University of New South Wales in Australia, and at the Science and Technology Facilities Council in the UK, where he led software development and research initiatives in digital preservation, digital curation, and research data management.
Barbara Sierman
Barbara Sierman worked from 2005 to 2020 as the digital preservation manager at the Research Department of the KB National Library of the Netherlands. She was active on the Board of the Open Preservation Foundation and the Steering Committee of the IIPC. In 2018, she was awarded the Digital Preservation Coalition Fellowship for her contribution to the field of digital preservation. After her retirement, she founded DigitalPreservation.nl and worked as a consultant on digital preservation topics for various clients such as OPF, NANETH, CTS, DPC and NDE. Currently, she is preparing a publication about the beginning of digital preservation in the European National Libraries.
Marjolein Steeman
Netwerk Digitaal Erfgoed / Beeld en Geluid
Marjolein works on projects in the area of preservation and metadata, developing and implementing preservation plans for new formats and archive services. She has worked worked at Beeld en Geluid / Sound & Vision for over 10 years. She studied information science at VU University Amsterdam and worked for years as an expert in data analysis and data management. Among other things, she has worked to secure various catalogs that came to Sound & Vision via merger partners or depositors. From 2017, Marjolein is part of the Verkennen Department, where she is responsible for the preservation policy of Sound & Vision. She is also a member of the Editorial Committee of PREMIS, the data standard for preservation metadata. In addition to the certification as a sustainable archive (CTS), the ISO certificate for information security (27001) also falls under her care.
Nathan Tallman
Academic Preservation Trust
Nathan Tallman is Executive Director of Academic Preservation Trust where he articulates a vision and executes strategic management for a community-owned distributed digital preservation service. He provides operational oversight of APTrust operations, including the development of plans and processes for the lifecycle of deposited content and the integration of digital preservation processes at existing and prospective APTrust member institutions. Previously, Nathan served as Digital Preservation Librarian and Penn State University and Digital Content Strategist at the University of Cincinnati.
Melissa Terras
University of Edinburgh
Melissa Terras is Professor of Digital Cultural Heritage within Design Informatics at the University of Edinburgh, UK. Her research contributions are in the area of digitisation of cultural heritage, covering three main areas: advanced digitisation techniques and approaches; understanding large-scale digitisation in the cultural heritage sector and how it can be best deployed for and by users as well as by institutions; and utilising the results of digitisation to undertake novel research and innovative projects in the arts and humanities. Recently, she has been working on the use of advanced technology in the cultural and creative industries, particularly how we can support innovation in this area. Melissa is Director of Creative Informatics, the Edinburgh based AHRC Creative Cluster (2018-2024), and a founding Director of Transkribus, the AI-powered platform for text recognition of historical documents. She is the University of Edinburgh Lead for CoSTAR (UK Government’s Convergent Screen Technologies and performance in Realtime) programme (2023-29).
Heather Tompkins
Library and Archives Canada / Bibliothèque et Archives Canada
For the past 18 years, Heather Tompkins has helped shape how Library and Archives Canada (LAC) preserves the country’s digital heritage. As a Senior Project Officer in the Digital Collections and Operations Division, her work includes providing strategic advice on the transfer and processing of digital records, contributing to policy development, and establishing LAC’s Pre‑Ingest procedures. After serving as a judge for the 2024 awards, Heather is excited to return for 2026 to celebrate the outstanding new work underway and to recognize the people who make it possible.
Jessica Venlet
National Digital Stewardship Alliance / University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Jessica Venlet works as the Assistant University Archivist for Digital Records and Records Management at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Libraries. In this role, she is responsible for a variety of things related to both records management and digital preservation. In particular, she leads the processing and management of born-digital archival materials.
Jaye Weatherburn
University of Melbourne
Jaye Weatherburn is the Program Manager, Digital Preservation at the University of Melbourne, coordinating ongoing development for digital preservation and stewardship activities. Since 2018 she has developed and coordinated the regional digital preservation community of practice Australasia Preserves and previously led the pilot development for the international Digital Preservation Coalition’s Australasian activities throughout 2020-2021, aiming to further enhance digital preservation awareness and practice for the Australasian community.