Kate Hiepko is a Research and Scholarly Communications Librarian in the Library's Collections, Content, Discovery and Research Team. She works closely with the Scholarly Communications Officer to manage the institutional repository, ChesterRep. She provides specialist guidance to the University's researchers on all aspects of scholarly communication, copyright and licensing, research dissemination, metrics, and Research Data Management (RDM). She also monitors and reports on institutional compliance with Open Access policies, including those of the Research Excellence Framework (REF) and funding bodies.

Kate collaborates with the Research and Innovation Office to support Workstream 2 (Research Data and Intelligence) of the University's Research and Knowledge Exchange Strategy, ensuring that effective systems are in place to capture the University's scholarly record, encourage compliance with Open Access policies and manage research data. She is a member of the team responsible for implementing the University's new CRIS, Symplectic Elements. She has overseen the integration of ChesterRep, streamlined the process of depositing research outputs and developed training materials for academic staff on depositing and managing outputs.

Kate has prior experience of working in both libraries and research. She previously worked in a Knowledge Centre at the global construction consultancy firm, HKA, where she performed legal research and produced regular legal updates for experts working at the firm. Before becoming a librarian, she completed a PhD in the History of Science, Technology and Medicine at the University of Manchester.