Ambassador Programme

The DOAB and OAPEN Ambassador Programme promotes the values of open access (OA) in the field of scholarly books. The Ambassadors’ objectives are to raise awareness about the work of DOAB and OAPEN, promote best practices and provide tools to support OA books publishing, help DOAB and OAPEN to get in touch with regional stakeholders and ideate projects to be developed jointly at local level.

This is a volunteer position and if you would like to become an ambassador please contact Sebastiano Sali, Community Manager ([email protected]).

Danny Kingsley - Ambassador for Australasia

Dr Danny Kingsley is an Australian-based thought leader in the international scholarly communication space. She is Director of Library Services (Information) at Deakin University and an Ambassador for the OAPEN Library of open access books. She has consulted for multiple Australian universities since returning from the UK where she was Deputy Director of Cambridge University Libraries from 2015-2019. Her research centres on scholarly communication including the academic reward structure, scholarly infrastructure and open access advocacy. She established Open Access Australasia in 2013. She sits on multiple committees, including the Royal Society Advisory Board on the Future for Scientific Publication and the FORCE11 Board of Directors.

Mandy Taha - Ambassador for Egypt and North Africa

Dr. Mandy A. Taha is an Open Access Consultant for Arab States and has collaborated with organizations like FORCE11, UNESCO, and FAO. A former board member and secretary of FORCE11 (2017-2024), she also served on its program and code of conduct committees. From 2001, Dr. Taha worked at the Library of Alexandria, contributing to various projects as a senior research librarian and leading the IFLA-CASL project on standards for Arab libraries. Her responsibilities included electronic resources training, collection development, bibliography compilation, subject guide creation, reference assistance, and teaching information literacy, including a Web2.0 literacy course. In 2009, she also established the blog “Alexlibrarians 2.0”.

Dr. Taha was awarded from many institutions such as EPT OA Award, 2013 and the Special Libraries Association membership (SLA) - Physics, Astronomy and Mathematics (PAM) Division, 2008.

Mandy was the eIFL open access country coordinator in Egypt (2008-2011), edited the DRIVER Wiki page on Open Access in Egypt, and organized Open Access Week activities from 2010 to 2020. Dr. Taha, who holds a PhD in Engineering, has popularized OA through seminars and led OA week in Egypt since 2009.

Mandy has authored and co-authored papers on Open access and extended her OA work by collaborating in webinars for the AIMS Metadata community in educating and exchanging knowledge.

Ramazan Turgut - Ambassador for Turkey and the Middle East

Ramazan Turgut is a publishing specialist and academic working at the intersection of open science, scholarly communication, and digital research infrastructure. He currently serves as Managing Editor at the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), where he supports the transition of journals to open access and promotes best practices in metadata, publication ethics, and editorial workflows.

Ramazan holds a PhD in the humanities and has conducted research at Radboud University and the University of Chicago. He is fluent in Kurdish, Turkish, English, and Dutch and collaborates with academic communities across disciplines and regions.

In addition to his editorial work, he regularly leads training sessions on integrating AI tools into research and publishing processes, helping researchers and institutions navigate evolving scholarly ecosystems.

Outside of work, Ramazan is a devoted father of three, an avid reader, and a passionate cook. If he lived in Middle-earth, he’d be Boromir—flawed, loyal, and deeply human.