Conference Programme

Mingfang, Ph.D. from Tsinghua University, China, brings extensive experience from renowned institutions like MOST, CAST, NSFC, CAS, CPS, and global entities such as Weizmann Institute of Science and the Swedish Institute of Space Physics. Serving as IOP Publishing's Editor-in-Chief for 16 years, he significantly enhanced published paper content, growing from 200 to 5,000 per year. As Chief Representative/Editor-in-Chief – China, FInstP, he spearheaded marketing strategies and organizational growth, increasing sales and fostering partnerships with eight top Chinese journals. In his tenure with Enago (Crimson Interactive), he served as General Manager from 2018 to May 2021.

Dr. Sven Fund is the Managing Director of Reviewer Credits, the peer review expert network. Prior jobs include leadership positions at Bertelsmann, SpringerNature, De Gruyter, ResearchGate, and Wiley. He holds a degree in European Studies from Washington University in St. Louis and a PhD in Political Science from Muenster University. Through his company fullstopp, Sven invests in startups in publishing and beyond. He lectures in Library and Information Science at Humboldt University in Berlin. He frequently speaks at international conferences around the globe.

Jasmine Yan is a Senior Consultant in the Overseas Marketing Department at Contrimetric, where she works closely with academic publishers worldwide to support the adoption of innovative publishing technologies. She focuses on building international partnerships and helping publishers enhance article discoverability, reader engagement, and journal visibility through AI-powered solutions. With experience in global business development and academic publishing, Jasmine is committed to fostering long-term collaborations that create value for publishers, researchers, and the scholarly communication community.

Dr. Hong Zhou is VP of Product Management at KnowledgeWorks Global Ltd., where he guides product vision and strategy, leads cross-functional teams, and drives innovation across publishing solutions for researchers, librarians, and publishers worldwide. Previously, he was Senior Director of AI Product & Innovation at Wiley, defining AI strategy and leading the roadmap. He helped shape Wiley’s AI ethics principles, advanced the Wiley Research Exchange and Atypon platforms, and led development of Wiley’s first AI-driven papermill detection tool, which won the 2025 Silver SSP EPIC Award for Excellence in Research Integrity Tools. He is a recognized industry leader in AI, product innovation, and workflow transformation. He also received an individual honorable mention for the 2024 APE Award for Innovation. He holds a PhD in 3D Modelling with AI and an MBA in Digital Transformation (Oxford University). He also serves as a COPE Advisor, Scholarly Kitchen Chef, Co-Chair of ALPSP’s AI Special Interest Group, and Distinguished Expert at China’s National Key Laboratory of Knowledge Mining for Medical Journals.

Laura Johnson manages a team of specialists within the Research Integrity team at the open access publisher Frontiers. The team screens manuscript submissions against quality and integrity criteria, investigates post-publication issues in line with COPE guidelines, and continuously refines operational workflows. More recently, she has been leading work on trust markers at Frontiers, contributing to broader efforts to strengthen the transparency and reliability of published research. Laura holds a PhD in Microbiology from Imperial College London.

Dr. Haseeb Irfanullah is a biologist-turned-development facilitator, who often introduces himself as a research enthusiast. Currently, he is an independent consultant in environment, climate change and research system. Advisory Cabinet Member of ACSE, co-chair of Environment & Sustainability Committee of European Association of Science Editors (EASE), an editorial board member of Learned Publishing and Trends in Scholarly Publishing, an associate at INASP and Research Consulting Ltd., and a Chef of The Scholarly Kitchen. Haseeb advocates justice, sustainability, climate action, and resilience of the scholarly publishing ecosystem. Haseeb has a PhD in aquatic ecology from the University of Liverpool, UK.

Shehnaz Ahmed has over 15 years of experience in STM and society publishing, with overall responsibility for the Society’s journals. She works closely with Editors-in-Chief and editorial teams to support journal development strategies, implement editorial policies, and ensure that peer review systems are robust, timely, and fair. She believes that high-quality peer review is an important benchmark of a journal’s quality.

Shehnaz is also a Non-Executive Director on the ALPSP Board, a Council Member of the Society Publishers’ Coalition (SocPC), and Co-Chair of the ALPSP AI Working Group. She also leads ALPSP’s annual course on the Fundamentals of Peer Review, supporting continued learning and good practice across the scholarly publishing community.

Dr. Moumita Koley is Senior Research Analyst at the DST-Centre for Policy Research at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore, and a Research Fellow at the Research on Research Institute (RoRI), UK. She is a member of the International Association of Universities (IAU) Open Science Expert Group and serves on the Steering Committee of the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA), representing Asia. She also contributed as a consultant to the International Science Council's Future of Scientific Publishing project.
Dr. Koley holds a PhD in Organic Chemistry from the Vienna University of Technology, Austria. Her professional interests have since expanded from laboratory research to the study of research systems, scholarly communication, open science, and research assessment.
Her work focuses on advancing equitable access to scientific knowledge, promoting responsible research assessment, strengthening research ecosystems, and supporting research that responds to local and regional needs. She has authored numerous scholarly articles and commentaries on open science, research evaluation, and the future of scholarly publishing.

Dr. Marie Soulière is Head of Auditing & Editorial Compliance at Frontiers, a Switzerland-based open-access publisher. Marie leads the team that audits research and editorial integrity across Frontiers’ journals, and much of her work comes back to one question: how do we ensure open science is trustworthy? She previously led Frontiers’ Research Integrity and Peer Review teams, and helped develop AIRA, the industry’s first Research Integrity AI assistant. Beyond Frontiers, Marie is a COPE Trustee, chairs COPE’s working group on systematic manipulation of the publication process, and authored COPE’s guidelines on AI in publishing. She also serves on the STM Research Integrity Committee.

Professor Mohammad Abdollahi is Professor of Toxicology and Pharmacology at Tehran University of Medical Sciences (TUMS), Iran. He is an internationally recognized scientist whose research focuses on mechanistic toxicology, pharmacology, environmental toxicants, biomarkers, and gene–environment interactions. He has published more than 1,000 scientific papers and 300 book chapters, with approximately 90,000 citations and an H-index exceeding 140. Professor Abdollahi has been repeatedly recognized among the world's most influential scientists and was awarded the prestigious Alborz Prize (Nobel-Class Category) in 2024, one of Iran's highest scientific honors.

Dr. Svetlina Vasileva is a researcher at Paper-Wizard, an AI-powered peer review tool that provides expert-level manuscript reviews to researchers worldwide. She holds a PhD in Neuroscience. Her research has been published in high-impact journals including JAMA Psychiatry, and recognized through multiple competitive awards. With expertise in research methodology, statistical analysis, and peer review, Dr. Vasileva is passionate about leveraging AI to improve research quality and accessibility while maintaining rigorous academic standards.

Chris Mavergames is Director of Editorial Platforms at Wiley, where he leads the development of next-generation editorial and peer review technologies supporting publishers and research organizations worldwide. His work focuses on editorial workflows, AI integration, and platform innovation, shaping systems used by millions of researchers.
With over 15 years of experience in scholarly publishing and research technology, he previously served as Chief Information Officer at Cochrane, leading initiatives to streamline and modernize evidence synthesis processes. His expertise includes product management, applied AI, and technology strategy in STM publishing.

Sam T Mathew is Director of Medical Delivery at AstraZeneca, with over 20 years of experience in drug development, medical writing, and regulatory strategy. He has worked across pharmaceutical companies, CROs, and publishing environments, leading the development of clinical and regulatory documents as well as scientific communications.
His expertise spans regulatory submissions, medical publications, and strategic communications, with a strong focus on operational excellence and quality. Sam is also an advocate for the thoughtful integration of AI and technology in medical and publishing workflows, bringing a practical perspective to evolving industry challenges.

Lisa DeTora is a Professor, Chairperson of the Department of Writing Studies and Rhetoric, and the Director of STEM Writing at Hofstra University. She also serves as guest faculty in medical humanities at the Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell. Her scholarship engages in technical communication, regulatory documentation, medical humanities, rhetorical studies, and health communication. Lisa served as the lead author of the Good Publication Practice 2022 update and her edited volume on regulatory documentation is going into a third edition.

Mohamed Samir is the CEO of Hefnawy Group and a scholarly publishing strategist with more than 15 years of experience in academic publishing, journal development, indexing, research visibility, and institutional partnerships.
He has supported universities, publishers, editors, and journal owners across the MENA region, helping launch, develop, and improve dozens of academic journals. Mohamed specializes in diagnosing underperforming journals and transforming them through stronger editorial governance, peer review, publication ethics, indexing readiness, discoverability, and sustainable growth strategies. He also advises universities on using their journals as strategic assets to strengthen research reputation, institutional impact, and ranking performance.
His current work focuses on helping journals navigate the evolving publishing landscape and adopt artificial intelligence responsibly through ethical, transparent, and AI-ready editorial policies and workflows. Mohamed is a clinical pharmacist by training and holds an MBA in Strategy and Innovation. He is a member of the European Association of Science Editors (EASE), the Society for Scholarly Publishing (SSP), and other notable international scholarly publishing and research associations.

Dr. Sabina Alam is VP of Publishing Ethics and Integrity. After a research career in neuroscience, she moved into scientific publishing (2008), served as Chief Editor of BMC Medicine (2011-2016), Editorial Director of F1000 Research (2017), and joined Taylor and Francis in 2018. She leads the Publishing Ethics and Research Integrity team, providing investigative oversight and expert guidance on editorial policies, publishing ethics, and research integrity, and ensures that our global outreach to key researcher communities on research integrity fosters trust and knowledge exchange. Sabina also serves as an Advisor for COPE and is a member of the Expert Committee at the STM Integrity Hub.

Renee is the Head of Publication Ethics for PLOS, and is based in northern California (USA).
Renee has a Ph.D. in Molecular and Cellular Biology from the University of Washington, and she conducted doctoral and postdoctoral research in developmental genetics, cell signaling, and neuroscience at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center (Seattle, WA) and the University of California, San Francisco.
Renee transitioned from research to publishing in 2014, and since that time has worked for the open access publisher, PLOS. She worked as a staff editor for the multidisciplinary megajournal PLOS One, and has led the PLOS Publication Ethics team since it was established in 2018. Renee serves as the strategic lead for publication ethics for the PLOS journal portfolio, leads development of PLOS ethics and integrity policies, and provides mentorship and guidance within PLOS and to external parties on matters related to ethics, integrity, and editorial policies. In addition, Renee has been involved in several cross-industry initiatives addressing publication ethics issues, including with COPE, STM, FORCE11, and United2Act working groups, and has authored articles, industry guidance, and blog posts on ethics and policy issues.

Hylke Koers is the Chief Information Officer for STM Solutions, STM’s operational arm which develops and manages shared infrastructures and collaborative services to support the scholarly communications community. He is responsible for the STM Integrity Hub and serves as program director for GetFTR and SeamlessAccess. Before joining STM, Hylke worked in several senior technology and product management roles, in both private and public sector organizations, supporting the research community. He has held leading roles in FAIRsFAIR, the Research Data Alliance and served on the EOSC Architecture Working Group. Hylke holds a PhD in theoretical physics from the University of Amsterdam.

Brian is CEO and Co-founder at Scholastica, a web-based software platform with tools and services for every aspect of publishing academic journals — from peer review to website design and article hosting to typesetting. Scholastica’s mission is to empower journal publishers to make quality research available more efficiently and affordably in order to facilitate a sustainable research future. Over 900 journals across disciplines use Scholastica.