Our People
Every PLOS article is a collaboration. Each of our journals is supported by a dedicated Board of volunteer editors with specific knowledge in their field, as well as thousands of reviewers who dedicate their time and expertise to ensure the quality of everything we publish. Working in partnership with our passionate internal staff, we are transforming research communication so that anyone, anywhere can read, share, and reuse the latest scientific discoveries.
Alison Mudditt
Chief Executive Officer
Bekah Darksmith
Chief of Staff and
Chief Marketing and Communications Officer
Veronique Kiermer
Chief Scientific Officer
Kate Motonaga
Chief Financial Officer
Niamh O’Connor
Chief Publishing Officer
Tom Scott
Chief Digital Officer
Executive Team
Alison Mudditt
Chief Executive Officer
Since June 2017 Alison has been Chief Executive Officer of the Public Library of Science (PLOS), an organization dedicated to advancing equitable, open science for the benefit of everyone everywhere. Prior to PLOS, Alison served as Director of the University of California Press and as Executive Vice President at SAGE Publications. Alison serves on the Board of the Center for Open Science, the MIT Libraries Visiting Committee, and the American Chemical Society’s Governing Board for Publishing. She is a regular speaker at industry meetings and contributing “chef” to the Scholarly Kitchen blog. Her more than 30 years in the publishing industry also include leadership positions at Taylor & Francis and Blackwell Publishers.
In the past, Alison has also served on the board of the Society for Scholarly Publishing, the Scientific Publications Committee and the Open Science Committee of the American Heart Association, the Authors’ Alliance, NISO, and the Executive Council of the PSP Division of the American Association of Publishers; and as Co-Chair of the Dean’s Leadership Council at California State University, Channel Islands.
Bekah Darksmith
Chief Marketing and Communications Officer
Bekah joined PLOS as its Chief Marketing & Communications Officer in February 2018 to lead strategic development and management of outreach, marketing, and communications. Over the past 20 years, she has worked across academic, not‐for‐profit, and commercial publishing markets, with the bulk of her career spent at the University of California Press in progressively senior roles. Bekah most recently served UC Press in a dual capacity. As its Deputy Director, she developed strategy and oversaw operations for all revenue-generating functions within the organization — marketing, sales, rights and licensing as well as fundraising. As the Executive Director of the UC Press Foundation, she was responsible for driving philanthropic support for UC Press through engagement with its Board of Trustees and administration of the organization’s endowment.
Veronique Kiermer
Chief Scientific Officer
Véronique became the Chief Scientific Officer in 2020, after joining PLOS in 2015 as Executive Editor. She is responsible for the editorial direction and vision of the PLOS suite of products, developing policies and programs that support PLOS’s vision for global, equitable open science. She has a PhD in molecular biology from the Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium and was a postdoc at the Gladstone Institutes, University of California, San Francisco. She worked in biotechnology R&D for gene therapy projects in the Bay Area and moved into publishing in 2004, first as the founding chief editor of Nature Methods, then as the Executive Editor for the Nature portfolio. She’s a proud alumnus of the ORCID Board and she currently serves on the Board of Directors of Keystone Symposia, the Scientific Advisory Board of the EMBL-EBI Literature Services & Biostudies, the NISO CRediT Standing Committee, and the US National Academy of Sciences Strategic Council for Research Excellence, Integrity, and Trust.
Kate Motonaga
Chief Financial Officer
Kate joined PLOS in 2021 as Chief Financial Officer overseeing the finance, accounting and legal functions at the organization. Kate has previously served as CFO in private, government, and nonprofit organizations, most recently as CFO and COO for the Pacific Science Center in Seattle. She’s held the same roles at MOCA, Los Angeles, served as Senior Associate Dean of Finance and CFO at the Anderson School of Management at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and has nearly ten years’ experience in consulting. During her career, Kate’s led finance, accounting, audit, tax, legal, risk management, investment portfolio, purchasing, and banking relationships. She’s also played an integral role in the startup of several international companies, created and analyzed business valuations, and led multiple budget improvement transformations. Kate holds an MBA from UCLA, and a BS in Economics (with concentrations in both Accounting and Finance) from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and has been a Certified Fraud Examiner (CFE) for over 15 years.
Niamh O’Connor
Chief Publishing Officer
Niamh is Chief Publishing Officer at PLOS where she leads the Publishing & Partnerships teams. Her focus includes providing business leadership for PLOS’s portfolio of products, growing PLOS’s regional networks and partnerships, and ensuring that PLOS’s Publishing Operations are aligned to deliver PLOS’s vision for publishing in the digital age. A key aspect of her team’s work is developing new business models to enable equitable participation in Open Access and Open Science.
Prior to PLOS, she was the Director of Publishing at the Biochemical Society/Portland Press. She spent nine years at the Royal Society of Chemistry in a variety of publishing roles including Editor and Publisher. She has served on a number of publishing industry and learned society committees including at the Publishers Association (UK) and NISO, and is a former Chair of the Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers. She holds a PhD in chemistry from the National University of Ireland (UCC).
Tom Scott
Chief Digital Officer
Tom Scott joined PLOS as Chief Digital Officer in February 2023 to lead our use of digital technologies and data across the organization. Tom came to PLOS from Wellcome where he led Wellcome Collection’s digital department, responsible for its ongoing digital transformation and internationally recognized work in making its collections, content and services as accessible as possible. Tom has extensive experience in delivering innovative digital products and services for a range of commercial and not-for-profit organizations. He has held senior positions at organizations such as Wellcome, the BBC, and Springer Nature. Tom is passionate about digital leadership, evidence-based decision-making, data ethics and innovation at the intersection of content, technology and design. He champions inclusive leadership and is committed to embedding diversity in thinking and practice within our strategic vision.