Mary Lee Kennedy, a nationally respected leader in the library community, was named the executive director of the Association of Research Libraries in January 2018. 

Prior to her current position she was the Chief Library Officer of The New York Public Library. There she led Library’s digital and education initiatives, and further strengthened both the research and circulating divisions of the Library.

Previous to that Kennedy was Senior Associate Provost at Harvard University, where she led projects and initiatives connected to Harvard priorities, such as open access and scholarly communications, digital scholarship, online learning and collections development and management. She was appointed to her position after serving five years on the President's Library Task Force and serving as the Executive Director of Knowledge and Library Services at Harvard Business School.

She earned her B.A. at the University of Alberta and her M.L.S. at Louisiana State University.