As the Biodiversity Heritage Library enters its new chapter following the completion of its transition to a new fiscal sponsor, it is important to acknowledge that BHL’s biggest strength lies not in its platform, nor in its 63 million pages, but in its people.

For nearly two decades, a small, deeply committed team has carried the responsibility of keeping BHL online, stable, and accessible to a global community. Much of that work happens behind the scenes, often invisible to the users who rely on BHL every day. Securing that expertise and institutional knowledge has been a central goal of the BHL transition.

That goal has been achieved: this week marks the completion of staff transitions from the Smithsonian Institution to BHL’s fiscal sponsor, the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR). All of BHL’s existing staff positions have been secured, preserving the leadership, institutional knowledge, and operational continuity that underpin BHL’s work.

Together, the BHL staff are responsible for implementing the Consortium’s vision, mission, and strategic goals, under the direction of the Members Council and Executive Committee. As BHL moves forward, the people who know the organization best remain at its core. BHL is in excellent hands.

Meet the BHL Team

Colleen Funkhouser

Managing Director (transitioning from BHL Program Manager)

Colleen Funkhouser, BHL Managing Director

Since joining BHL in 2020, Colleen Funkhouser has provided steady, strategic leadership across BHL’s programmatic, administrative, and financial operations. She brings deep expertise in library and nonprofit program management, and plays a central role in coordinating day-to-day operations across a complex, global consortium.

In her role as Program Manager, Colleen has overseen financial management, contracts, compliance, reporting, and project coordination across BHL’s global consortium. Her work has been especially critical during periods of disruption and change, including the COVID-19 pandemic, the departure of BHL’s Program Director in 2024, and BHL’s recent transition planning.

Colleen’s calm, measured leadership has been central to effective crisis response, sustainability planning, operational restructuring, and the practical work of moving BHL into a new fiscal and organizational model. As she moves into the role of BHL Managing Director under CLIR, Colleen will continue to provide strategic and operational leadership, ensuring that BHL remains stable, accountable, and well positioned for the future.

Bianca Crowley

Digital Collections Manager

Bianca Crowley, Digital Collections Manager

Bianca Crowley has worked on almost every aspect of the BHL collection. Starting as BHL’s Collections Coordinator in 2009, she has facilitated the workflows, policies, and partnerships that make it possible for BHL to aggregate and steward biodiversity literature and archival materials from institutions around the world.

As Digital Collections Manager and Chair of BHL’s Collections Committee, Bianca works at the intersection of collections, copyright, metadata, and community practice. She supports a global network of partners by providing training and documentation, and ensuring that BHL’s collection is as accessible, discoverable, usable, and comprehensive as possible.

Bianca is an indispensable bridge between policy, technology, and practice. She led the development of BHL’s Collection Development Policy and the Acknowledgment of Harmful Content, helping BHL respond thoughtfully and responsibly to its historical collections. Her deep knowledge of BHL systems and history, along with her steady stewardship of the collection, has been essential throughout BHL’s growth and transition.

Mike Lichtenberg

Lead Software Engineer

Mike Lichtenberg, BHL Lead Software Engineer

Mike Lichtenberg has been BHL’s Software Engineer since 2007, making him one of the longest-serving members of the BHL team. Over nearly two decades, he has designed, built, and maintained the systems that underpin BHL’s platform, transforming ambitious goals into reliable, scalable infrastructure.

With more than 30 years of experience in software engineering, Mike brings deep expertise in application architecture, database design, and system integration. His work has supported everything from large-scale digitization workflows to data extraction, analysis, and reuse, enabling BHL to serve researchers, libraries, and biodiversity infrastructures worldwide.

Mike has worked consistently across BHL’s technical and non-technical teams, translating needs into solutions across nearly 20 years of BHL’s technical evolution. Throughout the transition, his technical leadership and continuity have been critical to ensuring that BHL’s core systems remain stable and robust as the organization plans for future infrastructure development.

Joel Richard

BHL Technical Coordinator

Joel Richard, BHL Technical Coordinator

Joel Richard has supported BHL’s technical operations since 2009 and continues to play a vital role as BHL Technical Coordinator. Based at the Smithsonian Libraries and Archives, where he serves as Head of Web and IT, Joel brings more than three decades of experience in software engineering, web development, and infrastructure design.

Joel is the lead developer and maintainer of Macaw, BHL’s content integration and metadata collection system, which has enabled millions of pages to flow into BHL from partners around the world. He has overseen the reliability and integration of BHL’s technical systems, providing continuity and deep institutional knowledge across a complex, long-running technical platform.

As BHL moves forward, Joel will continue to support BHL in his role as Technical Coordinator, ensuring technical stability and continuity. He remains a key part of BHL’s operational ecosystem, and his long-standing commitment to BHL, alongside his broader advocacy for open and accessible infrastructure, will continue to shape and strengthen BHL’s technical future.

Kelli Trei

BHL Transition Director

Kelli Trei, BHL Transition Director

Kelli Trei has played a central leadership role in guiding BHL through the most significant change in its history. Before taking on the temporary role of BHL Transition Director in mid-2025, Kelli served as Vice Chair of BHL’s Executive Committee, providing strategic oversight and helping guide BHL’s governance.

As Transition Director, she has helped steer BHL from its long-standing administrative home at the Smithsonian Institution to a new operational model. She has worked closely with BHL’s Secretariat, Executive Committee, and partners to ensure continuity, clarity, and stability throughout the process.

In her professional role as Biosciences Librarian at the Funk ACES Library at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Kelli brings deep experience in supporting scientific research communities and understanding the information needs of scientists. That perspective has been invaluable during the transition, informing both strategic decision-making and the practical work of re-establishing BHL’s administrative, governance, and operational foundations.

Kelli’s long-standing commitment to BHL’s mission has been a steady guiding force throughout the transition, helping position BHL for a confident and resilient next chapter.

Nicole Kearney

BHL Communications Director

Nicole Kearney, BHL Communications Director

As BHL’s Communications Director, Nicole Kearney is responsible for internal and external communications across the global consortium. Throughout the transition, she helped articulate complex change and maintain trust by shaping advocacy messaging, delivering regular transition updates, and leading BHL’s fundraising campaign.

Nicole also manages BHL Australia, where she oversees digitization operations, copyright clearance, contributor liaison, strategic planning, reporting, staffing, and stakeholder engagement. Under her leadership, BHL Australia has grown from four contributing organizations into a national consortium of 64.

Nicole also chairs BHL’s Persistent Identifier Working Group, which she established in 2020 to bring BHL content into the modern, linked network of scholarly research. A passionate advocate for open access and interoperable data, she works to ensure biodiversity literature remains discoverable, trackable, and connected.

Looking Ahead

The transition to CLIR secures BHL’s staff, expertise, and operational capacity. The people who understand BHL’s history, systems, and community are still doing the work. Core services continue, and BHL’s relationships across its global community remain intact.

BHL’s future depends on infrastructure, governance, and funding, but it also depends on people. It depends on long-term commitment, deep institutional knowledge, and steady leadership. This team has carried that responsibility tirelessly and consistently, through growth, change, and uncertainty.

As BHL looks ahead to the next phase of its development, we do so with confidence and gratitude. The foundations are strong, the people are in place, and BHL is well positioned to continue serving the global biodiversity community for years to come.

This month (April 2022) marks my tenth year as the BHL Program Director. Over the past 10 years, we’ve seen a lot of change — and a lot of growth — with the Biodiversity Heritage Library. Taking over from our first Program Director, Tom Garnett, was a daunting challenge. Tom led the initial funding of BHL through the MacArthur Foundation grant with the Encyclopedia of Life and the establishment of BHL as a global consortium.

Among my first tasks as BHL Program Director was to build on that legacy with the transition of BHL from a grant funded organization to a member-driven one. Likewise, those first months of my tenure saw the close out of the BHL Europe project (which led to our continued strong European presence) and the planning meetings (and later launch) of BHL Africa.

Martin Kalfatovic at the Museum für Naturkunde in Berlin for the 2012 BHL Europe meeting. Photo credit: Grace Costantino

An early transition for me as Program Director was the departure of BHL’s technical guidestar, Chris Freeland (Missouri Botanical Garden) and the transition of Global Coordinator, William Ulate to that role. Later, technical coordination of BHL moved to Joel Richard (Smithsonian Libraries and Archives). Even during these leadership transitions, BHL’s many technical innovations were implemented and led by BHL developer, Mike Lichtenberg.

The past 10 years have been years of growth. BHL saw the addition of 20 partners as well as the creation of the reciprocal partner affiliation. Content also grew by over 21.3 million pages. Other important markers in the past 10 years include BHL being an inaugural partner of the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA), deepening the relationship of BHL with important biodiversity initiatives such as the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), the Catalogue of Life, and the Global Names Architecture.

During this time, BHL also initiated or closed out important grant funded initiatives done in collaboration with many different BHL partners, these included Art of Life (2012-2015); Purposeful Gaming (2013-2015); Mining Biodiversity: Enriching the Biodiversity Heritage Library with Text Mining and Social Media (2014-2016); Expanding Access to Biodiversity Literature (2015-2017); Foundations to Actions: Extending Innovations in Digital Libraries in Partnership with NDSR Learners (2016-2018); and the Field Notes Project (2016-2018).

I’ve also had the pleasure of accepting the following awards for BHL on behalf of all those who have worked on BHL: Laureate. IDG’s Computerworld Honors Program (2013); Charles Robert Long Award of Extraordinary Merit. Council on Botanical and Horticultural Libraries (2015); Internet Archive Hero Award. Global Leaders in Sharing Knowledge (2015); and Digital Library Federation (DLF) 2016 Community/Capacity Award (2016).

Internet Archive Hero Award (2015). Chris Freeland (Washington University at the time), Carolyn Sheffield (BHL), Keri Thompson (Smithsonian), Martin Kalfatovic (BHL), Wendy Hanamura (Internet Archive). Photo Credit: Brad Shirakawa.

In my role as BHL Program Director, I’ve had the support of BHL Secretariat staff past and present. Past BHL Program Managers Grace Costantino and Carolyn Sheffield did invaluable work during their tenure, work carried on by current Program Manager Colleen Funkhouser. Grace Costantino later provided a blueprint for BHL’s outreach and communication program; and our newest addition, JJ Dearborn, will take BHL into important new areas as BHL Data Manager. Bianca Crowley, BHL Collections Manager, has provided me with valuable assistance in working with BHL staff and collections around the world.

The work of the BHL Secretariat, and my work as Program Director, would not be possible without the guidance and support of the BHL Executive Committee (EC). It has been an honor to work with two EC Chairs, Nancy E. Gwinn (Smithsonian), and Constance Rinaldo (MCZ/Harvard). The other Member representatives who served as Vice-Chair and Secretary have provided crucial input.

The opportunities to work with and learn from BHL partner representatives, partner staff, and others (often in windowless conference rooms in the great museums and botanical gardens of the world!) has given me a wealth of knowledge in biodiversity, technology, and librarianship. Brewster Kahle and the amazing staff (past and present) of the Internet Archive have provided me, and BHL, with many new ideas that have advanced our work.

Brewster Kahle (Internet Archive) and Martin Kalfatovic (BHL) in 2017 with the Internet Archive Wayback Machine.

Having served as Secretary, Vice-Chair, and currently Chair, Connie Rinaldo has been the single constant in my time with BHL, both as Program Director and in previous capacities. Without her leadership, and most importantly her burning passion for BHL’s capacity to create meaningful change, my work would be harder and BHL less successful.

Constance Rinaldo and Martin Kalfatovic in Madagascar for the 2015 GBIF Governing Board Meeting.

The past two years of a global pandemic have been challenging for us all, as individuals and for our institutions. I’ve been proud to provide guidance to all my BHL colleagues as they have helped BHL navigate this time. I’m looking forward to our 2022 BHL Annual Meeting in Edinburgh where I will have the chance to talk about directions for BHL into the future!

JJ Dearborn, BHL Data Manager. Photo credit: JJ Dearborn

The Biodiversity Heritage Library is pleased to welcome JJ Dearborn to the newly created position of BHL Data Manager. The new Data Manager position is part of the BHL Secretariat, hosted by the Smithsonian Libraries and Archives. As Data Manager, Ms. Dearborn will be responsible for the oversight and management of the digital data collections (datasets) of BHL. She will be developing and implementing a comprehensive view of how BHL collections can be optimized to support the interoperability of BHL data in the larger biodiversity community.

Ms. Dearborn previously worked for three BHL founding Members (Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology, Smithsonian, and Harvard Botany Libraries) as well as the Wolbach Library at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, bringing over a decade of experience serving open data, open science, and open access initiatives. In previous positions for The State of Massachusetts (Product Owner and Data Librarian for the State of Massachusetts); The Knight Foundation Open Data to Open Knowledge Initiative (serving as Data Librarian for the Boston Public Library and the City of Boston); and BHL (most recently serving as Digital Projects Librarian for Harvard Botany Libraries), she wore many hats as a technical project manager, data librarian, UX researcher, blogger, and instructional designer.

Ms. Dearborn holds an M.S. in Library and Information Science from Simmons College and a B.A. in History from UCLA.

Ms. Dearborn will bring years of project management and data management experience to this exciting new position for BHL. Please join us in welcoming her to the BHL family!

Colleen Funkhouser, BHL Program Manager. Photo Credit: Colleen Funkhouser.

We are pleased to welcome Colleen Funkhouser as the new BHL Program Manager. As Program Manager, Ms. Funkhouser will work to build strategic partnerships and to maintain and grow the infrastructure and services of BHL.

A digital librarian with a background in biology, Ms. Funkhouser has previously supported academic and federal libraries with a focus on scientific research. She comes to BHL from the National Science Foundation, where she served as a Digital Librarian for the past three years. She was first introduced to BHL as a Cataloging Intern for the Smithsonian Field Book Project in 2015.

Ms. Funkhouser holds an MSLIS from The Catholic University of America and a BS in Wildlife and Fisheries Biology from Clemson University.

Ms. Funkhouser follows Carolyn Sheffield, who served as BHL Program Manager from 2013 – March 2019, when she took a new position as Associate Director, Library Technology and Digital Strategies at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, Albin O. Kuhn Library & Gallery. We are grateful to Ms. Sheffield for her many years of invaluable service to BHL.

We look forward to continuing to build and strengthen our program and consortium with Ms. Funkhouser as she joins the BHL Secretariat at the Smithsonian Libraries. Please join us in welcoming her to the BHL family!

Carolyn Sheffield (BHL Program Manager 2013-2019)

The Biodiversity Heritage Library’s loss is the gain of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, Albin O. Kuhn Library & Gallery. Carolyn Sheffield, BHL Program Manager, will be taking on a newly developed position as Associate Director, Library Technology and Digital Strategies effective March 4, 2019.

Carolyn first came to the Smithsonian in July 2010 as the Project Manager on the Field Book Project, a joint initiative of the National Museum of Natural History and the Smithsonian Institution Archives. She subsequently joined Smithsonian Libraries and has been serving as the Program Manager for the Biodiversity Heritage Library since 2013. She has provided financial management for the consortium, administrative support for meeting planning and general communications, and participated on the BHL Tech Team where she provided project management support for some of BHL’s recent technical initiatives. She has also participated in various capacities in several of BHL’s grant-funded initiatives including subsequent grants for adding field notes to BHL, the National Digital Stewardship Residency program, and the LIS Education in Data Science program.

Carolyn has also brought her amazing skills of organization, project planning, and strategic planning on a number of both BHL and Smithsonian Libraries’ projects. BHL benefited greatly from Carolyn’s skill in planning and executing foundation grants. During her tenure at BHL, she was key in receiving grants from the Arcadia Foundation and the Council of Library and Information Resources to support work with field notes.

We will all miss her keen analytical mind and sense of humor. We all wish Carolyn fair winds as she takes on new challenges.