Previous Positions (last 15 years)

• Health Sciences Librarian, Seton Hall University, Nutley, NJ 2018-2020.
• Web Services Librarian, Cushing/Whitney Medical Library, Yale University, New Haven, CT, 2014-2018.
• Administrative Specialist, University of Michigan Medical School, Ann Arbor, MI, 2010-2014.

Education

• Master of Science, Information, University of Michigan School of Information, Ann Arbor, MI, 2010
• BA, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, 2006

Official MLA Activities (last 15 years)

National

• Medical Library Association: member 2009-present;
• Board of Directors: member 2023-2026;
• MLAConnect: Board liaison 2024-2026;
• Finance Committee: Board representative 2023-2026;
• JMLA: Board liaison 2023-2026;
• JMLA Equity Advisory Group: Board liaison 2023-2026;
• Societal Issues Task Force: member 2022-2023;
• MLA/AAHSL Joint Legislation Committee: co-chair 2021-2023;
• Nominating Committee: member 2020-2021;
• Governmental Relations Committee: vice chair 2020-2021;
• MLA/AAHSL Joint Legislative Task Force: member 2019-2021;
• MLA Insight Initiative: participant 2019.

Caucus

• Social Justice and Health Disparities: chair-elect, chair, past chair 2018-2021
• User Experience: co-founder 2019

Chapter

• New York/New Jersey Chapter: member 2018-2023; Website Committee: cochair, 2018-2020; Nominating Committee: chair 2019-2020, member 2018-2019.

Professional Experience (last 15 years)

Professional Activities

• Peer reviewer, JMLA 2023-present.
• Peer reviewer, BMC Health Services Research 2025-present.
• Peer reviewer, BMJ Open 2023-2024.
• Member, Code4Lib Annual Conference Scholarship Committee, 2020.

Professional Honors

• Keynote Speaker, MLA Liberty Chapter Annual Meeting, 2025.
• Co-recipient/co-investigator, Donald A. B. Lindberg Research Fellowship, 2025.
• Code4Lib Annual Conference Scholarship Recipient, 2019.
• Outstanding Contribution by a New Member, New York/New Jersey Chapter of the MLA, 2018.

Publications (last 15 years)

• Pelak A, Zamir F, Patel R, Hickner A, Stilling J. Strategies for rehabilitation of poststroke hand edema: A scoping review. J Hand Ther. Published online January 6, 2026:S0894-1130(25)00201-7. doi:10.1016/j.jht.2025.12.005.
• Choi JJ, Schreurs S, Leung PB, et al. Variability and gaps in teamwork assessment tools for health care teams in health professions education: A scoping review. Med Educ. 2025;59(9):910-923. doi:10.1111/medu.15620.
• Gorlick MK, Balasubramanian S, Han G, et al. Scoping Review of Adult Emergency Department Discharge Interventions. West J Emerg Med. 2025;26(4):823-834. doi:10.5811/westjem.35264.
• Schilperoort HM, Hickner A, Morgan-Daniel J, Parker RMN. Development and validation of LGBTQIA+ search filters: report on process and pilot filter for queer women. J Med Libr Assoc. 2025;113(2):123-132. doi:10.5195/jmla.2025.2002.
• Abraham-Aggarwal K, Spertus D, Avgar A, et al. The Impact of Unions on US Direct Care Workers in Long-Term Care Settings: A Systematic Review. J Am Med Dir Assoc. 2024;25(12):105236. doi:10.1016/j.jamda.2024.105236.
• Koh ES, Dabsha A, Rahouma M, et al. Succinate dehydrogenase mutations in head and neck paragangliomas: A systematic review and meta-analysis of individual patients’ data. Head Neck. 2024;46(7):1795-1808. doi:10.1002/hed.27652.
• Abankwa A, Sansone S, Aligbe O, Hickner A, Segal S. The Role of Ureaplasma and Mycoplasma Species in Recurrent Lower Urinary Tract Infection in Females: A Scoping Review. Reprod Sci. 2024;31(7):1771-1780. doi:10.1007/s43032-024-01513-y.
• Usman M, Yao P, Luckett K, et al. The use of thyroid isthmusectomy for management of well differentiated thyroid carcinoma – A systematic review and meta-analysis. Surg Oncol. 2024;52:102032. doi:10.1016/j.suronc.2023.102032.
• Hickner A. How do search systems impact systematic searching? A qualitative study. J Med Libr Assoc. 2023;111(4):774-782. doi:10.5195/jmla.2023.1647.
• Narayan P, Ahsan MD, Webster EM, et al. Partner and localizer of BRCA2 (PALB2) pathogenic variants and ovarian cancer: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Gynecol Oncol. 2023;177:72-85. doi:10.1016/j.ygyno.2023.07.017.
• Johnson JA, Moore B, Hwang EK, Hickner A, Yeo H. The accuracy of race & ethnicity data in US based healthcare databases: A systematic review. Am J Surg. 2023;226(4):463-470. doi:10.1016/j.amjsurg.2023.05.011.
• Webster EM, Ahsan MD, Perez L, et al. Chatbot Artificial Intelligence for Genetic Cancer Risk Assessment and Counseling: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. JCO Clin Cancer Inform. 2023;7:e2300123. doi:10.1200/CCI.23.00123.
• Demetres MR, Wright DN, Hickner A, Jedlicka C, Delgado D. A decade of systematic reviews: an assessment of Weill Cornell Medicine’s systematic review service. J Med Libr Assoc. 2023;111(3):728-732. doi:10.5195/jmla.2023.1628.
• Nsanya MK, Abramson R, Kisigo GA, et al. Hypertension among adolescents in sub-Saharan Africa: a systematic review. Front Cardiovasc Med. 2023;10:1251817. doi:10.3389/fcvm.2023.1251817.
• Hickner A, Wright D, Merlo L, Gordon-Elliott JS, Delgado D. Redesigning library orientation for first-year medical students during the pandemic. J Med Libr Assoc. 2021;109(3):497-502. doi:10.5195/jmla.2021.1190.
• Rabiee A, Ximenes RO, Nikayin S, et al. Factors associated with health-related quality of life in patients with cirrhosis: a systematic review. Liver Int. 2021;41(1):6-15. doi:10.1111/liv.14680.
• Hickner J, Hickner A. We all benefit from this powerful pairing. J Fam Pract. 2019;68(5):252.
• Powers EM, Shiffman RN, Melnick ER, Hickner A, Sharifi M. Efficacy and unintended consequences of hard-stop alerts in electronic health record systems: a systematic review. J Am Med Inform Assoc. 2018;25(11):1556-1566. doi:10.1093/jamia/ocy112.
• Meddings J, Saint S, Krein SL, et al. Systematic Review of Interventions to Reduce Urinary Tract Infection in Nursing Home Residents. J Hosp Med. 2017;12(5):356-368. doi:10.12788/jhm.2724.
• Meddings J, Saint S, Fowler KE, et al. The Ann Arbor Criteria for Appropriate Urinary Catheter Use in Hospitalized Medical Patients: Results Obtained by Using the RAND/UCLA Appropriateness Method. Ann Intern Med. 2015;162(9 Suppl):S1-34. doi:10.7326/M14-1304.
• Petrilli CM, Mack M, Petrilli JJ, Hickner A, Saint S, Chopra V. Understanding the role of physician attire on patient perceptions: a systematic review of the literature–targeting attire to improve likelihood of rapport (TAILOR) investigators. BMJ Open. 2015;5(1):e006578. doi:10.1136/bmjopen-2014-006578.
• Rohde JM, Dimcheff DE, Blumberg N, et al. Health care-associated infection after red blood cell transfusion: a systematic review and meta-analysis. JAMA. 2014;311(13):1317-1326. doi:10.1001/jama.2014.2726.
• Hollingsworth JM, Rogers MAM, Krein SL, et al. Determining the noninfectious complications of indwelling urethral catheters: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Ann Intern Med. 2013;159(6):401-410. doi:10.7326/0003-4819-159-6-201309170-00006.
• Chopra V, Anand S, Hickner A, et al. Risk of venous thromboembolism associated with peripherally inserted central catheters: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Lancet. 2013;382(9889):311-325. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(13)60592-9.

Candidate Questions from the Nominating Committee

What do you see as the biggest challenge facing MLA, and how would you work with the board and members to address it?

MLA’s financial sustainability has been our number one challenge since the pandemic, and I expect it to continue to be for the immediate future. Contributing factors have included the same inflation we’ve grappled with in our personal budgets; declining vendor support and annual meeting attendance; increasingly tight university budgets; cuts to NIH research funding; and dwindling numbers of US health sciences librarians. Over the past 2 years, MLA leadership and staff have been working to identify potential ways to diversify MLA’s revenue by appealing to new audiences and potential customers. I would work with the leadership, members, and staff to implement these ideas, which, if successful, will help MLA achieve financial sustainability.

How can we as an organization provide the maximum value to our members and seek opportunities for engagement, advocacy, and relevance in these changing times?

These are four separate questions which each have different answers. Rather than tackling all four, I’ll focus on maximizing value to members. Part of that is effectively communicating to members what MLA is doing with your dollars. Before I served on the Board, I didn’t realize most of my membership dues go to essential programs. I don’t think many members realize how unusual MLA is insofar as it publishes a fully open access, prestigious, peer-reviewed journal, which is almost unheard-of. When you renew your MLA membership, you are funding our profession’s flagship journal and keeping it free for anyone in the world to read. Another example is the annual meeting. We all complain about registration costs, but few people realize that our conference registration is heavily subsidized by participating vendors. These are examples of the kinds of financial transparency members need in order to assess MLA’s value to them.

How would you, as a leader for MLA, work with the incoming new Executive Director to help shape the strategic vision of the Association?

For the past several years, our Executive Director, Kevin Baliozian had more knowledge and experience of the budget and operational aspects of our association than most of MLA’s elected leaders due to his longer tenure. As we welcome our new ED, Katrina Holland, that situation has now flipped. If elected, I would provide one source of institutional memory for Katrina as she learns about our association. In return, Katrina will provide a fresh new perspective that will be valuable to us as we develop our strategic vision. I would continue the regular one-on-one meetings past Presidents have with the ED, as well as the ED’s regular meetings with the Executive Committee.

Describe one suggestion you have to engage people new to the profession and/or to MLA?

There are a million different ways MLA can engage new information professionals and new members; the hard part is identifying which will have the highest ROI, given limited staff and volunteer time. To me, one obvious opportunity could be to increase our outreach to library schools and LIS students. Many aspiring librarians are unaware or unfamiliar with health sciences librarianship or of how professional associations can help them build their network and resumes. MLA has multiple programs of potential interest to students and recent grads, ranging from our mentorship programs to the Research Training Institute to annual meeting scholarships. Bringing even a modest percentage of the thousands of students enrolled in ALA-accredited programs each year into our community could benefit them AND our association.