We are very pleased to welcome the two newest members of the Authors Alliance Advisory Board: Amy Brand and Alison Mudditt. They join a distinguished group of advisors who contribute valuable expertise and perspectives on academia, authorship, scholarly communication, legal matters, and publishing. In their roles at MIT Press and PLOS, respectively, Brand and Mudditt bring extensive knowledge of open science, scholarship, and innovative publishing models. We look forward to working with them and our other advisory board members to create, refine, and improve the tools and services we offer to authors in the digital age.
Amy Brand was named Director of the MIT Press in July 2015. Previously, she served as VP Academic and Research Relations and VP North America at Digital Science. Brand serves on the DuraSpace Board of Directors, the Board on Research Data and Information of the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine, and was a founding member of the ORCID Board, and regularly advises on key community initiatives in digital scholarship. She holds a B.A. in linguistics from Barnard College and a PhD in cognitive science from MIT.
Alison Mudditt is Chief Executive Officer of PLOS, a global leader in the transformation of scientific communication. Previously, she was Director of the University of California Press and has also held senior positions with SAGE Publications, Taylor & Francis, and Blackwell Publishers. She currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers and has served on the Scientific Publications Committee and the Open Science Committee of the American Heart Association; the Dean’s Leadership Council at California State University Channel Islands; and the Executive Council of the Professional and Scholarly Publishing Division of the American Association of Publishers, as well as a number of other volunteer boards. She holds an MBA in addition to a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Bath.