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
Alison Mudditt joined PLOS as Chief Executive Officer in June, 2017, where her primary role is to ensure PLOS’s continuous innovation, bold leadership, and mission-driven differentiation in scientific communication. Prior to PLOS, Alison served as Director of the University of California Press for six years where she ushered in new strategies to lead the Press into the digital age and as Executive Vice President at SAGE Publications, leading publishing programs across books, journals and digital platforms. Her 30 years in the publishing industry also include leadership positions at Blackwell Publishers in Oxford, UK, and Taylor & Francis Inc., in Philadelphia. Alison is a frequent speaker at industry meetings and currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Center for Open Science and the Society for Scholarly Publishing, and on the Advisory Board for the Authors’ Alliance. In the past, Alison has also served on the Board of ALPSP, as Vice Chair of the Scientific Publications Committee and a member of the Open Science Committee for the American Heart Association; on the Executive Council of the Professional and Scholarly Publishing 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
Veronique Kiermer joined PLOS in 2015 as Executive Editor, responsible for editorial and content direction and vision for the PLOS suite of journals. Prior to PLOS, Veronique was Director of Author and Reviewer Services for Nature Publishing Group (NPG) where she oversaw the Nature journals research integrity and editorial policies. She also focused on the author and reviewer experience across the publishing portfolio of NPG. Veronique was the founding Chief Editor of Nature Methods and subsequently took on publishing responsibility for the title and other online products. In 2010 she became Executive Editor, NPG, overseeing editorial policies and editorial quality assurance for Nature and the Nature journals. Veronique obtained her PhD in molecular biology from the Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium and completed postdoctoral work at the University of California, San Francisco.
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, having joined as Journals Publishing Director in 2018. As Chief Publishing Officer she provides business leadership for our entire portfolio ensuring that it has a strong value proposition and advances PLOS’ vision and mission. Prior to PLOS, she was the Director of Publishing at the Biochemical Society/Portland Press, leading strategy development and developing collaborative relationships with Boards, Committees and the wider scientific and publishing communities to broaden engagement and support the molecular bioscience community in transitioning to an Open Science culture. Prior to joining the Biochemical Society she spent nine years at the Royal Society of Chemistry in a variety of publishing roles including Publisher and Editor, where she co-created and implemented journal strategies with Editorial Boards to meet the needs of the evolving global scientific community. 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.