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 s.sali[at]oapen.org.

Alicia Wang - Ambassador for China

Alicia Wang is a China-based professional specializing in digital publishing and open science advocacy. She serves as Deputy Director responsible for digital business initiatives at China National Publications Import and Export (Group) Co., Ltd. (CNPIEC).

Prior to joining the publishing industry, she spent 17 years at a Sino-German Joint venture, bringing a distinctive international collaboration perspective to her current work.

She is a core member of the Open Science Promotion Consortium (OSPC) secretariat, China’s primary association advancing open science and open access. She plays a key role in organizing both the PubTech Conference and the STM APAC Conference, connecting publishers and industry leaders worldwide. Her work focuses on bridging Chinese and international publishing ecosystems and advancing open access adoption across China’s largest research market.

View Aliciaìs LinkedIn profile.

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.

Sadiat Adetoro Salau - Ambassador for Nigeria

Dr Sadiat Adetoro Salau is an academic librarian at the Federal University of Technology, Minna, Nigeria and the Director of the Centre for Open Distance and eLearning at the University.

Dr Salau has contributed significantly to the advocacy for open access at the institutional and national level in Nigeria. Her advocacy is driven by the belief that librarians should be at the forefront of expanding access to knowledge to advance research and development. She is a recipient of the 2016 INASP/UNESCO Open Access grant and the 2023 Wikimedia Alliances Open Climate Fellowship.

At the national level, she leads activities on Research Assessment Reforms to support open science through her membership of the LIBSENSE Open Science Nigeria. She actively leads advocacy efforts through publications and presentations to the members of the Committee of Vice-Chancellors of Nigerian Universities (CVCNU) and the Association of University Librarians of Nigerian Universities (AULNU) on aligning research assessment practices with open science trends.

She also contributes to the deployment of Open Science policy and infrastructure of other institutions. Her research interests include open science, digital technologies for knowledge management, scholarly communication, and usability studies, and she has authored and co-authored publications in these areas.

View Sadiat’s LinkedIn profile.

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.

Maria Lamury - Ambassador for Indonesia

Maria has spent her 25 years, mostly as a scholarly communication librarian in several libraries in Indonesia, which then led her to become an archive and librarian international consultant for the UNESCO in Dili, Timor-Leste, in 2023.

During her role as head librarian at the university library, she initiated the university library association in Banten Province, Indonesia, and the first anti-plagiarism consortium in Indonesia. Not only that, during her tenure as head librarian, she initiated and maintained the university’s scholarly journals for 7 years until she was appointed as the first Indonesian local liaison for Public Knowledge Project (PKP) in 2024 where she represented the organization to strengthen relationships with the Indonesian scholarly publishing community.

Maria is currently involved in a short-term project to promote the new plugin of Open Journal Systems, the world’s most widely used journal management and publishing system developed by PKP, namely the Publication Facts Label, which improve the scientific literacy and journal integrity among all journals.

Her previous roles and works can be seen in her LinkedIn profile.

Michael Situma - Ambassador for Kenya

Michael Situma is an Information Scientist and Digital Media Specialist based at Moi University, where he is a Lecturer in the School of Information Sciences, Department of Publishing, Journalism and Communication studies. He is currently pursuing a PhD in Communication Studies at Moi University, focusing on the utilization of Open Access channels for scholarly communication in selected universities in Kenya.

With over 15 years of professional experience in academic publishing, graphic design, and electronic publishing systems, Michael has worked extensively with Moi University Press, managing book production workflows from manuscript development through to print and digital dissemination. His expertise spans scholarly publishing, digital content management, and publishing technologies. He is keen in the integration of AI into publishing processes and helping scientists navigate disruptive scholarly ecosystems.

Michael has presented research at international forums, including CODATA and ELPUB, contributing to global discussions on Open Access policy, e-publishing adoption, Open Science, and the visibility of African scholarship. He actively engages in regional and international conversations on sustainable Open Access book publishing and scholarly communication innovation.

He is a member of the Kenya Publishers Association and the Media Council of Kenya, and is committed to advancing inclusive, high-quality scholarly publishing ecosystems in East Africa. His work bridges academic research, publishing practice, and policy advocacy to enhance the accessibility, dissemination, and global reach of African scholarship.

As a scholar and publishing innovation leader, Michael’s research interests include Open Access, digital publishing infrastructure, editorial and electronic publishing systems, scholarly communication, Open Science, and communication research.

Ramazan Turgut - Ambassador for Turkey

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.