Guest host Charlie Bennett chats with Brian Mathews, Associate Dean at Virginia Tech.

Brian Mathews is an Associate Dean at Virginia Tech. He brings leadership and strategic vision to the areas of learning spaces, webinteractions, emerging media and technologies, new literacies, user engagement, and experimental pedagogies.

Brian is also an Assistant Director for Virginia Tech’s newly formed Center for Innovation in Learning. And he is a Faculty Fellow for Virginia Tech’s Honors Residential College.

Previously, Brian was an Assistant University Librarian at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He led the libraries marketing and outreach efforts and was heavily involved with planning for a $67 million library addition and renovation.

Prior to UCSB, Brian worked at Georgia Tech. He started out as a reference and instruction librarian and was a liaison to the College of Computing and Department of Mechanical Engineering. After several years in this role, Brian became the first user experience librarian in the US. This position was a blend of assessment, R&D, marketing, outreach, and design.

Brian earned a Master’s in Library and Information Science from the University of South Florida, and a double BA in History and English at the University of Central Florida.

Charlie Bennett was born in New York, raised in Virginia, and moved to Atlanta to study at the Georgia Institute of Technology. After earning degrees in Economics and Science, Technology, and Culture (STAC), he stayed with the school and became an academic librarian at the Georgia Tech Library. He co-hosts the “one-and-only research-library rock’n’roll radio show” called Lost in the Stacks on WREK Atlanta, and produces the irreverent podcast Consilience With Pete and Charlie about the intersection of science and the humanities.