Dr. Katherine Skinner is the Executive Director of the Educopia Institute, a not-for-profit educational organization that empowers collaborative communities to create, share, and preserve knowledge. She has helped to found the MetaArchive Cooperative, a community-owned and community-governed digital preservation network founded in 2004 that now has more than 50 member institutions in four countries; the Library Publishing Coalition, a membership organization that supports library publishing and scholarly communications activities across more than 80 academic libraries; the BitCurator Consortium, a community-led membership association that supports digital forensics practices in libraries, archives, and museums; and the Software Preservation Network, a community focused on the preservation of software.

Skinner received her Ph.D. in American Studies from Emory University. She has co-edited three books and has authored and co-authored numerous reports and articles, including Community Cultivation – A Field Guide (2018). She is currently Principal Investigator for research projects on digital preservation (OSSArcFlow, BitcuratorEdu), and scholarly communication (Next Generation Library Publishing, Library Publishing Workflows), and has served as Principal Investigator on more than a dozen research projects to date. She regularly teaches graduate courses and workshops in digital librarianship and scholarly communication topics, and provides consultation services on community cultivation and sustainability topics.