Philips Ayeni

Dr. Philips Ayeni recently completed his PhD in Information Studies at McGill School of Information Studies. Using mixed-methods research design, his PhD thesis explored open access scholarly communication practices of researchers in the humanities and social sciences disciplines in Canada. His research is situated within the intersection of policy, social justice, and equity on issues relating to scholarly communication, open access, knowledge mobilization and utilization. He employs interdisciplinary theories, approach, and methodologies to answer my research questions. One of the motivations for his research is ensuring equitable access to research outputs. This is because open access publishing of research outputs is a veritable means of achieving global equity of access to knowledge.

Through his research, advocacy, and involvement in open scholarship, he has won several awards. These include the prestigious Coalition Publica PhD scholarship 2021, Society for Scholarly publishing (SSP), FORCE11 Scholarly Communication Institute (FSCI) and Canadian Association for Research Libraries (CARL) in 2019. Just recently, he won the prestigious Fonds de recherche du Québec – Société et culture (FRQSC) doctoral scholarship for 2022-2023. He also won the 1st-Place award for the ALISE/Jean Tague doctoral student research poster competition, held in Pittsburgh, PA in October 2022.

His service and contribution to the field of information science as the 2020-2021 Chair of McGill Student Chapter of Association for Information Science and Technology (ASIS&T) earned him the prestigious New Leader award in 2021. He currently serves as a peer-reviewer for ASIS&T conference and Evidence Based Library and Information Practice (EBLIP) an open access journal published by the University of Alberta library.

When he’s not working, he spends time bowling, playing pool and tennis, bicycling and driving. He enjoys volunteering, mentoring, traveling, and meeting new people.