Team

The OAPEN team consists of the following persons:

Niels Stern - Director

Niels Stern is director of OAPEN. He began his career in scholarly book publishing in 2003 with an emphasis on marketing and digital publishing. In this capacity he became a co-founder of the OAPEN project in 2008. Moving on to the Nordic Council of Ministers in 2011 as head of publishing he created a Nordic open access policy and publication repository. Since 2014 Niels Stern has acted as independent expert for the European Commission on open science and e-infrastructures. He has evaluated and reviewed numerous European projects, e.g. HIRMEOS and OPERAS-D. In 2017 he joined the Royal Danish Library as head of department, managing licence portfolios for five universities and serving as chief negotiator for the national licence consortium.

Niels Stern holds a Master of Arts degree from University of Copenhagen (Nordic Literature and Languages) and a Master of Arts degree from Goldsmiths College, University of London (Communication). He has published articles on open access and other subjects and in 2017 he co-authored the Knowledge Exchange Landscape study on monographs and open access together with Frances Pinter and Eelco Ferwerda.

E-mail: stern[@]oapen.org

Twitter: @nielsstern, @OAPENbooks

ORCID: 0000-0001-6466-9748

Ronald Snijder - Deputy Director

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 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 working on the OAPEN project.

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

Twitter: @ronaldsnijder, @OAPENbooks, @DOABooks

Mastodon: @RonaldSnijder@mastodon.social

ORCID: 0000-0001-9260-4941

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

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

Tom Mosterd - Community Manager

Tom Mosterd joined OAPEN-DOAB as Community Manager in 2020. He is responsible for engaging publishers, libraries and other stakeholders around OAPEN and its open access book infrastructure and services. His primary focus is on working with the growing library community on further improving and developing OAPEN and its services, connecting these with the needs of the library community. Next to this, Tom is one of three coordinators of the Open Access Books Network - an open network for anyone interested in open access books - organising events, creating resources, advocating for open access books and building a thriving community around open access books.

Before joining OAPEN as a Community Manager in 2020, Tom Mosterd worked at Knowledge Unlatched. He was responsible for maintaining relations and sales to all Higher Education Institutions in the UK & Benelux. Additionally he worked on ensuring the preservation and digital dissemination of open content, through a variety of platforms and archives. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Business & Management Studies.

E-mail: t.mosterd[@]oapen.org

Twitter: @OAPENbooks, @DOABooks

ORCID: 0000-0003-0382-7145

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

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

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 will focus on the Policy Alignment of Open Access Monographs in the European Research Area (PALOMERA) and on further developing the OA Books Toolkit.

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