DOAJ team

Managing Editor

Alejandra Manco Vega

Alejandra has a Bachelor’s degree in Information Science and a Master’s degree in Digital Media. She has around ten years of experience in information management, knowledge management and scholarly communication at national and international level.

Quality Team Lead and Managing Editor

Cenyu Shen

Cenyu holds a PhD in Information Systems Science at Hanken School of Economics in Finland. She has spent around seven years on Open Access research with a particular focus on gold OA publishing concerning journals and publishers outside the mainstream. She was one of three DOAJ ambassadors for China from 2016 to 2017.

Programme Manager

Clara Armengou

Clara has 10 years experience in the scholarly publishing industry. She worked at Cambridge University Press as an Open Access Project Manager until 2015. She also works in science communication as a freelancer at the University Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona. Clara speaks Spanish, Catalan, English and some German and French. She loves cetaceans, freediving, cycling, and is an enthusiastic cook.

Operations Manager

Dominic Mitchell

Dominic has over 20 years experience working with publisher and library communities. He started off as a publisher with BMJ Group, and then became an account and project manager with HighWire Press. He represents DOAJ on the Think. Check. Submit. initiative, of which DOAJ is a founding organisation. He writes the DOAJ blog. In 2019, he was elected to the OASPA Board of Directors. Outside of work, he is reluctantly becoming an expert in the playparks of Stockholm with his twin sons.

Managing Editor

Iemima Ploscariu

Iemima holds a Master of Arts in Comparative History from Central European University, Hungary, and a Master of Letters in Central and East European Studies from the University of St Andrews, Scotland. She is a PhD student and researcher for the Irish Research Council at Dublin City University, Ireland. She volunteered as an Editor for DOAJ from 2014 until 2020 when she became a Managing Editor.

Managing Editor

Ilaria Fava

Ilaria is a librarian with several years of experience within the Open Access community in her home country of Italy, where she has dealt with Open Access issues at both national and international level. She also serves the Göttingen State and University Library working on Open Science projects. Based in Rome and Göttingen, Ilaria loves baking cakes; she speaks Italian, English, some Spanish and a little German.

Managing Director

Joanna Ball

Joanna has had over 25 years experience of working within research libraries in the UK and Denmark, most recently as Head of Roskilde University Library, before joining DOAJ in 2022. She has also been involved with UKSG as Chair of Insights Editorial Board and a Trustee, and is currently Vice Chair. Joanna lives with her family in Roskilde and enjoys running in her spare time.

Senior Managing Editor

Judith Barnsby

Judith has 25 years experience in the scholarly publishing industry, working for a range of non-profit society publishers and service providers before joining DOAJ. She has a keen interest in publishing standards and protocols, and has served on the board of CLOCKSS and as chair of the PALS (publisher and library solutions) working group in the UK. Judith loves books, especially detective fiction, and volunteers in her local library.

Managing Editor and Ambassador

Kamel Belhamel

Kamel is Full Professor of Chemistry at the University of Bejaia, Algeria (ORCID). He gained his PhD in Process Engineering and Chemistry of Materials Science at the University of Setif, Algeria. Kamel joined DOAJ in 2016 as an Ambassador for North Africa. He is currently Creative Commons Algeria Chapter lead, director of the Laboratory of Organic Materials at the University of Bejaia and editor-in-chief of Algerian Journal of Natural Products. His scientific activity is focused on chemistry of Natural Products, scholarly communications and new developments in academic publishing. Father of 3 daughters, he likes travelling, healthy local foods & home-made snacks.

Community Manager

Katrine Sundsbø

Katrine holds a Master’s degree in Cognitive Neuroscience, and has five years of experience in the field of scholarly communications. She has been an advocate for open access and visibility of research through various working groups, projects and through gamification of scholarly communications. Though Katrine is half Danish and half Norwegian, her son is named after a Swedish singer - and her British husband suggested the name!

Advisor and Founder

Lars Bjørnshauge

Lars worked at Danish university libraries for two decades and was Director of Libraries at Lund University, Sweden from 2001 to 2011. He founded the DOAJ in 2003, and was Managing Director from 2013-2021. He has vast experience in change management, re-engineering of academic libraries, and development of information services for research & higher education. For two decades Lars has been a strong advocate of open access and for providing services to the open access movement. He is co-founder of OpenDOAR, the Directory of Open Access Books and Think. Check. Submit. Lars lives outside Copenhagen, and is married with 4 children and 4 grandchildren. He enjoys vegetable gardening, growing cacti and succulents, and playing internet chess.

Managing Editor and Ambassador

Leena Shah

Leena joined the DOAJ team in 2016 as an Ambassador for India before becoming a Managing Editor. Prior to joining DOAJ she worked as a science librarian at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, where she developed a keen interest in scholarly communication & open science. A recent addition to her interests is artificial intelligence in scholarly communication. Leena holds a Master’s degree in Information Studies and lives in Singapore. She loves watching sci-fi shows and is enthusiastic about travelling to new places.

Communications Manager

Louise Stoddard

Louise has over 15 years experience in communications and public relations for non-profit and international organisations. She holds a Masters in Journalism and a Bachelor of Science and Economics in International Development from The University of Wales, Swansea. Louise has worked for the United Nations for 8 years, also with academic and non-profit organisations promoting access to knowledge and information. In 2021 Louise joined DOAJ as the focal point for public relations and communications. Outside of work Louise can usually be found in her vegetable garden.

Managing Editor and Ambassador

Mahmoud Khalifa

Mahmoud is a PhD candidate at Humboldt University of Berlin, Germany. He is writing his dissertation about national information policies. Mahmoud was an associate at IFLA International Leaders Programme, 2016-2018, and an accredited trainer for the IFLA BSLA programme (Building Strong Library Association), as well as an OCLC Fellow at Jay Jordan IFLA/OCLC Early Career Development Fellowship Program, class 2010. Professionally, he worked in Library of Congress Cairo Office from 2006-2018. As a researcher, he published more than 20 articles, book chapters, and conference papers.

Managing Editor

Paula Marjamäki

Paula, based in southern Finland, is a published researcher and holds a PhD in Biological Sciences from the University of Exeter, UK. She is a big believer in open science, and has been actively involved in science outreach throughout her academic career. She joined the DOAJ team in March 2020 as a Database Assistant before moving to editorial duties in August 2020, with a focus on managing applications from Nordic countries. Outside of work she is a natural history enthusiast, and enjoys yoga, hiking, and participating in various dog sports with her Swiss shepherd.

Database Assistant

Popi Florou

For the past 20 years, Popi has been working as a support Librarian for the Greek National Consortium for Academic and Research Institutions. During this time, she has been mainly responsible for the management of the Consortium's electronic resources database and portal, and she is also involved in almost all the Consortium's projects including the support and promotion of Open Access as a means of recording, promoting and outreaching its members' qualitative research.

Managing Editor

Rikard Zeylon

Rikard has a Bachelor of Arts degree with a Major in Cultural Sciences and a specialization in publishing. He enjoys reading about philosophy and religion.

Managing Editor

Sonja Brage

Sonja is a former Information Librarian from Lund University Library. She has a B.A. in English, Bulgarian and Russian from Lund University and specialises in applications for journals in the Slavonic languages.

UX/UI Product Designer

Sophie

Sophie specialises in user experience design and accessibility for open source projects in open access and scholarly communications. She has a Masters in Library and Information science from the University of Montreal and McGill University, and did her undergraduate studies in biology and French literature at the University of Ottawa. She also leads design and front-end development at OA.Works, and has worked for the Public Knowledge Project (OJS), SPARC, and Érudit, as well as directly for a number of scholars doing UI design and data visualisation.

Editor-in-Chief

Tom Olijhoek

Tom has a PhD in molecular microbiology and spent several years in Africa doing research on malaria, sleeping sickness and meningococcal epidemics. He has been actively advocating open access and open science since 2012 when he joined the Open Knowledge community and became a member of the DOAJ advisory board. His current research interests are development of quality systems for the assessment of scholarly journals and articles, and research in the area of soil microbiology in relation to soil health and human health.

Finance Administrator

Zhanna Protasevych

Zhanna has a Bachelor degree in Finance. She has around seven years in Finance, Accounting, and Supervising. Zhanna speaks Ukrainian, Russian and English. She loves snowboarding, art photography, and music.