New Officers and Board Members Begin Terms
The Association of University Presses (AUPresses) welcomes Stephanie Williams, director of Wayne State University Press, as its new President. She is the Association’s first African American President and the second woman of color elected to this role. (See a complete list of past Presidents.)
Williams has worked in publishing and bookselling for nearly thirty years. After starting out as promotions assistant and manager at the Boulder Bookstore, she continued working as a bookseller for Barnes & Noble, Books-A-Million, and Borders. She then held marketing management positions at Pelican Publishing Company, the University Press of Florida, the University of Missouri Press—also helping to found the Unbound Book Festival there in Columbia—and the University Press of Kentucky. She took on the senior leadership role at Wayne State University Press in 2020.
Williams succeeds Dennis Lloyd, director of the University of Wisconsin Press, as AUPresses President. She has served the Association as a member of the Board of Directors (2020-2022); the Research Task Force; and the Equity, Justice, Inclusion, and Belonging; Marketing; Nominating; and Program Committees. Currently a member of the Persea Press board, she has also been involved in the advisory boards of Amherst College Press and the Midwest Publishers Association.
“We live in a time of economic shifts, changing reading and research habits, relentless technological advances and distraction, and, in the US and many other places, a sharp and alarming political divide alongside threats to the democracy and civil rights that we had come to believe were worth past sacrifices,” Williams observed in her inaugural message. “Now is a good time to remember how to be agile, resilient, and versatile, and to share those skills across the lines of work.”
Read her full message.
In addition, Brent Oberlin, chief financial officer at MIT Press, transitions from Treasurer-elect to Treasurer for 2026-2027, and is joined by leaders elected at the Association’s virtual Annual Business Meeting on May 21:
- Mary C. Francis, director of the University of Pennsylvania Press, as President-elect;
- Katie Hannah, director of the University of Tennessee Press, as Treasurer-elect;
- Davida Breier, director of Hopkins Fulfillment Services and co-director of marketing and sales, Johns Hopkins University Press, as Director-at-Large.
The Association also thanks the following individuals for their dedicated service as their terms end:
- Past President Anthony Cond, director of Liverpool University Press (the Association’s first non-North American President);
- Directors-at-Large Tara Cyphers, assistant director, Ohio State University Press, and John Sherer, Spangler Family Director, University of North Carolina Press.
Learn more about the work of the Association of University Presses Board of Directors.