Leadership
Governed by a board of managers with diverse expertise and led by a deeply experienced executive team, AIP Publishing is a wholly owned not-for-profit subsidiary of the American Institute of Physics. Each of us is personally committed to fulfilling AIP’s scientific, educational, and charitable missions through our scholarly publishing initiatives.
Executive Management Team
Alexandra (Alix) Vance
CEO
Alexandra (Alix) Vance, CEO of AIP Publishing, has spent more than 20 years driving growth for innovative academic, scholarly, and professional publishing organizations. Before joining AIP Publishing in 2020, Alix was CEO of GeoScienceWorld, a leading nonprofit publisher of books, journals, and data in the Earth Sciences and partner to nearly 30 publishing organizations. She has held executive and advisory roles in nonprofit, commercial, and startup organizations in publishing and technology services, including at SAGE and eBookLibrary. Alix is passionately interested in product and service development to meet emerging customer needs and is equally committed to transforming organizational models and culture. Alix is a graduate of Wellesley College with a master’s degree in social work and post-graduate training in clinical psychotherapy.
Sara Girard
Head of Marketing and Communications
Sara is responsible for corporate communications, brand, customer insights, and marketing strategy. Sara was previously Head of Marketing at Nature Publishing Group where she built and managed a global marketing organization to meet transformational business challenges, and a Senior Associate at KWF Consulting. Sara has a MA from the University of Pittsburgh, a BA from St. Lawrence University. She currently serves on the Strategic Communications Committee for STM, and on the Communications Working Group for CHORUS.
Roy Levenson
Chief Financial Officer
Roy leads AIP Publishing’s finance, treasury, and accounting services as well as the business intelligence and customer service teams. Roy brings with him a deep knowledge and understanding of strategic finance in the publishing and media environments. He holds both a Bachelor’s and a Masters in Business Administration from Hofstra University. Prior to joining AIP Publishing, Roy held increasingly senior level financial leadership positions including with Barnes & Noble and Time Warner.
Penelope Lewis
Chief Publishing Officer
Penelope is responsible for the strategic growth of AIP Publishing’s diverse portfolio of highly respected journals, books, and conference proceedings aimed at advancing the global physical science community. Prior to joining AIP Publishing in February 2021, Penelope held senior-level roles at the American Chemical Society Publications Division in Editorial and Strategic Planning & Analysis. She holds a Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry from The Pennsylvania State University and performed postdoctoral research at Columbia University. She is active within the publishing industry, including serving on the Crossref Board of Directors, on the Society Publishers’ Coalition, and as the 2020 Chair of Society Day sponsored by STM.
Ann Michael
Chief Transformation Officer
Ann leads the Transformation Office at AIP Publishing, charged with increasing organizational velocity, flexibility, and strategic alignment in data and analytics, new product development, and ongoing product operations. Ann joined AIP Publishing in January 2022 after more than a decade as Founder and CEO of Delta Think, Inc, a strategic consultancy in scholarly communications. She has also served as Chief Digital Officer at PLOS and has held several board and advisory roles in nonprofit, commercial, and startup organizations. Since the start of her career, Ann has been passionately interested in organizational evolution and working with organizations that are data driven and future focused. She has a MS from SUNY Stony Brook in Policy Analysis and Public Management and an MS in Business Analytics from the NYU Stern School.
Dean Sanderson
Chief Strategy Officer
Dean is responsible for the development and execution of AIP Publishing’s growth and product strategy. He joined AIP Publishing in October 2020 following twenty-two years of publishing management experience at Holtzbrinck Publishing Group / Springer Nature. As managing director of Nature Research Group at Springer Nature, he oversaw the successful expansion of the Nature-branded journal portfolio. As the head of the Magazines and Partner Services group at Springer Nature, he led Client Marketing Services and Springer Nature’s Funder Relations Center of Excellence in addition to serving as the President of Scientific American. Sanderson was a founding member of Springer Nature’s Diversity & Inclusion Council.
Kevin Steiner
Head of Global Sales and Advertising
Kevin is responsible for the sale of AIP Publishing’s products and services into the global academic, corporate and government library markets. Kevin has extensive international sales and marketing experience within the STM industry which includes living in Taiwan while handling the Asia Pacific Region for the Kluwer Academic Publishers. He has brought a wealth of knowledge from his roles at Springer Science and Business Media and the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM).
David J. Helfand
Chair
David, a faculty member at Columbia University for thirty-nine years, served half of that time as Chair of the Department of Astronomy. He is the author of nearly 200 scientific publications and has mentored 22 PhD students, but most of his pedagogical efforts have been aimed at teaching science to non-science majors. He instituted the first change in Columbia’s Core Curriculum in 60 years by introducing science to all first-year students. In 2005, he became involved in the effort to create Canada’s first independent, non-profit, secular university, Quest University Canada. He was a Visiting Tutor in the University’s inaugural semester in the Fall of 2007 and served as President & Vice-Chancellor from 2008 to 2015. He also recently concluded a four-year term as President of the American Astronomical Society. David is a member of the Executive Committee of the Board of Science Counts, an organization formed to communicate to the public the importance and impact of publicly funded fundamental research.
Eray S. Aydil
Eray is the Sr. Vice Dean and Alstadt Lord Mark Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the New York University Tandon School of Engineering and the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Vacuum Science and Technology A & B. Previously, he was the Christenson Chair in Renewable Energy and Executive Officer of the Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science at the University of Minnesota (UMN). Eray received B.S. degrees in chemical engineering and materials science from U. C. Berkeley and a Ph.D. in chemical engineering from the University of Houston. After a postdoc at Bell Labs, he joined the chemical engineering department at U.C. Santa Barbara and rose through the ranks to become a professor and vice chairman of the department before moving to UMN. His research revolves around thin film deposition, plasma processing, and materials synthesis and characterization for solar cells. Eray has published over 230 articles cited over 20,000 times. In recognition of his research, he has received the Peter Mark Award and the Plasma Prize from the American Vacuum Society (AVS), the Norman Hackerman Young Author Award of the Electrochemical Society, the National Young Investigator Award of the NSF, and the Camille-Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award. He is a Fellow of the AVS.
Amy Brand
Dr. Amy Brand is Director and Publisher of the MIT Press, one of the world’s largest university presses, publishing groundbreaking books and journals across science, technology, art, and design. Dr. Brand received her doctorate in cognitive science from MIT and held a number of positions in scholarly communications, higher education, and information access at MIT, Digital Science, Crossref, and Harvard University, before returning to the MIT Press as Director in 2015. She serves on boards of several publishing and media organizations, and was executive producer of the Emmy-nominated documentary Picture a Scientist, a film that portrays gender inequality in science. Some of Dr. Brand’s awards include the MIT Laya Wiesner Community Award, the American Association for the Advancement of Science Kavli Science Journalism Gold Award, and the Award for Meritorious Achievement issued by the Council of Science Editors.
Theodora Bloom
Theodora Bloom has been executive editor of The BMJ since 2014. She has a PhD in developmental cell biology from the University of Cambridge and worked as a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard Medical School, researching cell-cycle regulation. She moved into publishing as a biology editor at Nature, and in the 1990s joined the fledgling journal Current Biology. After a number of years developing Current Biology and its siblings Structure and Chemistry & Biology, Theo joined the beginnings of the open access movement. As founding editor of Genome Biology she was closely involved in the birth of the commercial open access publisher BioMed Central, where she became Editorial Director for biology. After a spell as a freelance publishing consultant, she joined the non-profit open access publisher Public Library of Science (PLOS) in 2008, first as Chief Editor of PLOS Biology and later as Biology Editorial Director with additional responsibility for PLOS Computational Biology and PLOS Genetics. She also led at PLOS on issues around data access and availability. She chairs the scientific advisory board of EMBL-EBI Literature Services (http://www.ebi.ac.uk/services/literature) and is European Coordinator for the Peer Review Congress (https://peerreviewcongress.org/).
Beth A. Cunningham
Beth is the Executive Officer of the American Association of Physics Teachers. She earned a Bachelor of Science degree, a Master of Arts degree, and a Doctor of Philosophy from Kent State University. Beth taught at Gettysburg College and Bucknell University and served as Provost and Dean of the Faculty at Illinois Wesleyan University. At AAPT since 2011, Beth provides leadership on a number of physics education initiatives including providing professional development opportunities for high school physics teachers and physics faculty in higher education, the PhysTEC project to increase the number and quality of high school physics teachers, and projects to diversify physics. As a long time member of AAPT, she enjoys working closely with many members to improve physics teaching and learning at all levels.
Susan E. Fox
Susan is Executive Director of the Acoustical Society of America. A Fellow of the American Society of Association Executives, Susan earned her M.S. in Public Affairs from the McCormack Graduate School of Policy and Global Studies, University of Massachusetts, Boston. She specializes in institutional change, governance, strategic positioning, and organizational development. Previously she served as Executive Director of the Arctic Research Consortium of the U.S., the American Association of Law Libraries, the Society of American Archivists, and as Director of Programs at the Harvard Kennedy School Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.
Thomas Koetzle
Treasurer
Tom spent nearly 30 years at Brookhaven National Laboratory where he led a research group applying neutron diffraction to a wide range of problems in structural and materials chemistry, retiring from the Laboratory as a Senior Chemist. In addition, at Brookhaven he directed the Protein Data Bank curated data resource for structures of biological macromolecules (currently the wwPDB). An elected Fellow of the American Crystallographic Association, Tom served a term as President of the Association and co-edited its quarterly publication, ACA RefleXions. Author of more than 200 research articles, he is a recipient of the Association’s Robert Bau Neutron Diffraction Award. Tom has served on a number of boards and commissions, including the U.S. National Committees for Crystallography and for CODATA of the National Research Council, Washington, DC, and the Commission on Crystallographic Data of the International Union of Crystallography. Tom received A.B., A.M, and Ph.D. degrees in Chemistry from Harvard, where he studied under Nobel laureate William Lipscomb.
Laurie McGraw
30-year technology executive known for driving innovation, company growth, and industry standard-setting across the healthcare sector. Board lead/director to NASDAQ companies, venture advisor, and health equity champion. TEDx speaker, Forbes Technology Council Member, Crain’s Notable Women Executive. Previous AMA SVP; President AMA Innovations; President at Allscripts. Passionate outdoor enthusiast fortunate to live in both Boulder, CO and Big Sky, MT. Committed to building the next generation of leaders, podcast creator and host (Inspiring Women with Laurie McGraw) providing insights for women navigating their career paths and trying to make a positive impact in the world.
Gareth H. McKinley FRS
Gareth is the School of Engineering Professor of Teaching Innovation within the Department of Mechanical Engineering at MIT. He received his BA and M.Eng. degrees from the University of Cambridge (UK) and his Ph.D (1991) from the Chemical Engineering department at MIT. He served as Executive Editor of the Journal of Non-Newtonian Fluid Mechanics from 2001 to 2009 and as Associate Editor of Journal of Fluid Mechanics from 2007-2009. He is also a co-founder of Cambridge Polymer Group. His research interests include rheology of complex fluids, non-Newtonian fluid dynamics and super-hydrophobicity. He is the recipient of the 2013 Bingham Medal of the Society of Rheology, the Gold Medal of the British Society of Rheology (2014) and the 2022 G.I.Taylor Medal of the Society for Engineering Science (SES). He is a former President of the Society of Rheology and now serves as the Society’s official historian. In 2019 he was elected to the National Academy of Engineering and also inducted as a Fellow of the Royal Society of London.
Valeria Molinero
Valeria Molinero is the Jack and Peg Simons Endowed Professor of Theoretical Chemistry and Director of the Henry Eying Center for Theoretical Chemistry at The University of Utah, where she investigates the interplay between microscopic structure, dynamics, and phase transformations in materials. Molinero’s contributions have been recognized with the Helmholtz Award, Beckman Young Investigator Award, Myriad Award, and Camille and Henry Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award. She was elected in 2021 to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and in 2022 to National Academy of Sciences.
Michael H. Moloney
Michael H. Moloney is the ninth CEO of the American Institute of Physics (AIP)—a federation that advances the success of our 10 Member Societies and an institute that operates as a center of excellence supporting the physical sciences enterprise. For nearly a century, AIP has worked to advance, promote, and serve the physical sciences. Since joining AIP in early 2018, Moloney has been leading a strategic transformation effort for the Institute in preparation for its centennial anniversary in 2031. At the core of the transformation is AIP’s commitment to supporting its Member Societies to broaden their impact and achieve results beyond their individual missions and mandates, and to advancing the physical sciences writ large through independent research in social science, policy, and history.
Karen E. Willcox
Karen E. Willcox is Director of the Oden Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences, Associate Vice President for Research, and Professor of Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics at The University of Texas at Austin. She is also External Professor at the Santa Fe Institute. Before joining the Oden Institute in 2018, she spent 17 years as a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she served as the founding Co-Director of the MIT Center for Computational Engineering and the Associate Head of the MIT Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics. Prior to joining the MIT faculty, she worked at Boeing Phantom Works with the Blended-Wing-Body aircraft design group. She is a Fellow of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM), Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), Fellow of the US Association for Computational Mechanics (USACM), and member of the National Academy of Engineering (NAE).