Team

The OAPEN team consists of the following persons:

Niels Stern - Managing Director

Niels Stern has worked in scholarly publishing for more than twenty years. Since 2014 he has also acted as an independent expert for the European Commission on open science and e-infrastructures. He is a member of the OPERAS Executive Assembly and the Vice-chair of the Open Book Collective Board of Stewards and serves on a number of advisory boards and committees.

E-mail: stern[@]oapen.org

X (Twitter): @nielsstern, @OAPENbooks

ORCID: 0000-0001-6466-9748

Dorien van der Giessen – Collection Manager

Dorien van der Giessen joined OAPEN in 2012. Before that, she worked as an information specialist in several libraries (amongst others: Ministry of Justice & Security; WODC Research and Documentation Centre).

Dorien’s responsibilities for OAPEN and DOAB include collection and metadata management; reporting and the upload of books and chapters into the OAPEN Library.

She holds a bachelor’s degree in Library and Information Sciences.

E-mail: d.vandergiessen[@]oapen.org

Mary Felix-Maina - General Manager

Mary Felix-Maina joined OAPEN in February 2024.

She has worked in the Academic/Research library field for more than 15 years, managing Library teams, collections, user services and supporting and implementing scholarly communication processes.

Most recently Mary worked as a Research Data Management consultant at the Utrecht University Library before joining OAPEN. She holds a Master’s degree in Library and Information Studies from Kenyatta University.

Mary’s main responsibilities at OAPEN and DOAB include managing administrative tasks across the organisation and supporting technical tasks and relevant projects. She focuses on enhancing an overall organisational efficiency.

Email: [email protected]

Jordy Findanis – Project Manager

Jordy Findanis joined the OAPEN Foundation as Project Manager in 2023. He has worked in scholarly publishing for more than fifteen years and has managed most aspects of the publication process, including editing and production (print and digital content in different formats and for various platforms), distribution, fundraising and open access. He holds an MA in English from Aalborg University.

Jordy’s main tasks at OAPEN include publisher outreach. In this capacity he is also part of Open Book Futures (OBF), a community-driven project based at Lancaster University and funded by Research England Development (RED) and Arcadia. The collaborative project seeks to enhance Open Access infrastructures and promote bibliodiverse and equitable community-led approaches to Open Access book publishing.

Email: j.findanis[@]oapen.org

Laura Bandura-Morgan - Funder Relations Manager

Laura Bandura-Morgan joined OAPEN Foundation in August 2022. Her focus is engaging with research funders to create a forum to share ideas and experiences related to OA book infrastructure developments in support of policy implementation.

She has received her Ph.D in Molecular Biology but for the last 8 years she has been involved in Open Science activities. She was a long-term employee of the National Science Centre, a governmental funding agency in Poland. Apart from her duties as a head of audit and compliance team she focused mainly on developing and implementing guidelines and policies on research integrity, data management and open access. She was a member of Science Europe Working Groups on open data and open infrastructure, and involved in work of cOAlition S task groups.

E-mail: l.bandura[@]oapen.org

ORCID: 0000-0002-7040-5682

Laura J. Wilkinson - Product Manager

Laura J. Wilkinson joined OAPEN as a Product Manager in 2022. Her previous experience includes roles at Crossref, ORCID, UKSG Committee, and at the university libraries of Northumbria, Sunderland, and Oxford. She was awarded an MA in Information and Library Management in 2006, and has held invited positions at Newcastle University (UK) and Université Lyon 1 Claude Bernard (FR).

Laura’s main areas of work at OAPEN are the Books Analytics Dashboard, Peer Review Information Service for Monographs (PRISM), and technical support for OAPEN, DOAB, and the OA Books Toolkit.

E-mail: l.wilkinson[@]oapen.org

ORCID iD: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8922-7839

Lotte van Aalten– Publisher Relations Manager

Lotte van Aalten started her work for OAPEN as project assistant in 2009. After working as a marketing intern and editorial assistant at Amsterdam University Press, she joined the OAPEN project and continued working for OAPEN when it was established as a foundation.

Lotte’s main focus is engaging with publishers worldwide. She is also engaged in communication and project activites. She has a Master of Arts degree in Arts, Culture and Media and a minor in literary studies.

E-mail: l.vanaalten[@]oapen.org

Ronald Snijder - CTO / Head of Research

Ronald Snijder joined the OAPEN Foundation in 2011. He is responsible for the operational, technical and data-related aspects of the OAPEN Library, the Directory of Open Access Books and the OA Books Toolkit. He has a background in library and information sciences, information technology and holds a PhD in social sciences.

Since 2008 he has been active in the field of open access books; both at a practical level and as researcher. Before that, he has worked in several profit and not-for-profit organisations as an IT and information management specialist. When working at Amsterdam University Press, he was part of the team that developed and launched OAPEN.

E-mail: r.snijder[@]oapen.org

Mastodon: @[email protected]

ORCID: 0000-0001-9260-4941

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/ronaldsnijder

Sebastiano Sali - Community Manager

Sebastiano joined OAPEN in 2024 as Community Manager. He has eight years of experience in building global partnerships and engaging communities worldwide to support sustainable development. He has led strategic communications and supported senior leadership at Frontiers, the United Nations and in local government.

A researcher in International Relations by training, he has worked and studied at King’s College London, Aberystwyth, Kadir Has, La Sapienza, M.E.T.U., Stockholm and Bologna University.

Father of two, he is a tennis fanatic and addicted to everything that is history.

E-mail: s.sali[@]oapen.org

Silke Davison - Community Manager

Silke Davison joined OAPEN in May 2023 as Community Manager. She is responsible for the development of and engagement with library communities and the communication and marketing activities for OAPEN and DOAB.

Prior to this, she worked in Frontiers’ Institutional Partnerships Team and Springer Nature’s OA Books and OA Operations teams, and completed an MA in Publishing at UCL.

E-mail: s.davison[@]oapen.org

Sînziana Păltineanu - Project Manager

Sînziana Păltineanu joined OAPEN as Project Manager in 2023. Sînziana’s previous experience includes roles at the Berlin University Alliance and at Bard College Berlin. At OAPEN, Sînziana’s main areas of work are the PALOMERA project (Policy Alignment of Open Access Monographs in the European Research Area), the OAPEN OA Books Toolkit, and the Book Analytics Dashboard.

Sînziana holds a Ph.D. in the Comparative History of Central, Southeastern and Eastern Europe from the Central European University. Among other awards and fellowships, Sînziana was a Reese Miller Scholar at Cornell University (Ithaca/USA) and a Fellow for Literature at Akademie Schloss Solitude (Stuttgart/Germany).

E-mail: s.paltineanu[@]oapen.org

Vaggelis Theodorakopoulos - Platform Engineer

Vaggelis Theodorakopoulos is Platform Engineer for OAPEN.

E-mail: [email protected]