About
BioOne evolved from the kernel of an idea scribbled on a napkin into a $12M+ per year organization serving more than 150 nonprofit publishers, 3,500 libraries, and millions of researchers, educators, and students around the globe.
OurMission
BioOne sees sustainable scholarly publishing as an inherently collaborative enterprise connecting authors, nonprofit publishers, academic institutions, research libraries, and research funders in the common goal of maximizing access to critical research.
BioOne explores economic models and strategic partnerships that balance the needs of all stakeholders, and currently demonstrates this balance by offering financially sustainable information services in the biological sciences. BioOne supports best practices that increase operational effectiveness and technological standards that integrate its content with a global network of scholarly exchange.
Collaboration to build sustainable publishing that maximizes access to critical research.
OurTeam
We are a small, nimble team committed to innovating scholarly publishing. Although we’re headquartered in Washington, DC, you’ll find us all over the world.
Lauren Kane
President/CEO

Lauren Kane joined BioOne as the organization’s third President/CEO in January 2022. In this role she is chief ambassador for BioOne’s nonprofit mission and strategic vision. She manages the BioOne team, facilitates the Board of Directors, and safeguards the interests of BioOne’s community of societies, publishers, libraries, funders, researchers, and valued partners.
Lauren previously served BioOne for 13 years across a variety of roles, including Chief Strategy and Operating Officer. She was also CEO of the strategic consultancy Delta Think, and Chief Publishing Officer for the publishing technology company Morressier. Throughout her career, she has focused on helping academic societies and research organizations innovate, collaborate, and remain financially sustainable.
An active community participant, Lauren proudly served as the 2020-2021 President of the Society for Scholarly Publishing (SSP). She is a frequent conference speaker and delivered the keynote address at the 2021 Academic Publishing in Europe (APE) Annual conference entitled Reinvention or Return to ‘Normal’? Scholarly Communications at a Crossroads.
Lauren holds a bachelor of arts from Georgetown University and a masters of business administration from the University of New Hampshire. She resides in Washington, D.C.
Christine Orr
Director of Sales and Marketing

Christine Orr joined BioOne in 2019 as the organization’s Director of Sales and Marketing. Christine is responsible for developing and implementing global sales, marketing, and product development programs to maximize the impact of BioOne content and align with the evolving needs of libraries, publishers, and researchers. Prior to joining BioOne, Christine supported publishers and intermediaries in their efforts to improve data infrastructure at Ringgold. She has also held institutional sales and marketing roles at the American Institute of Physics and OSA – the Optical Society. Christine is active in our community and is currently a member of the Society for Scholarly Publishing’s Career Development Committee and the Washington D.C. Organizing Committee. She speaks at industry events on issues such as the importance of data quality, and the role of persistent identifiers throughout the scholarly communications workflow. Christine holds a bachelor of arts from the University of Wisconsin – Madison and a master of library science from Long Island University.
Beth Hutchins
Director of Operations and Technology

Beth joined BioOne in the summer of 2020 as the Director of Product Management, and now serves as BioOne’s Director of Operations and Technology. With more than 18 years of experience in the scholarly communications community, she has worked closely with technology platforms, global societies and the library community. Her previous positions include work with Springer as the Director of Development for the SpringerLink platform; Partner and Business Development at IOP Publishing; and Program Management at GVPi/Sage. Beth holds a Bachelors of Science degree from Texas A&M University.
Chelsea Tharp
North American Sales Manager

Carol Borrmann-Begg
Publisher Development Associate

Carol joined BioOne in the autumn of 2021 as the organization’s Publisher Development Associate and is the point of contact for the 150+ publishers in the BioOne Community. Prior to joining BioOne, Carol was an Assistant Dean at Rutgers University, School of Arts and Sciences, developing and managing retention programming for academically-at-risk students. She has worked in education and academia for the last 15 years in the UK, Japan, and the USA. Carol holds a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature and English Language and Master of Arts in Applied Linguistics from Anglia Ruskin University.
Maggie Grasseschi
Publishing Technology Associate
Cheryl Greer
Library Services Associate

Cheryl joined BioOne in summer 2022, as the Library Services Associate. Cheryl’s past work includes roles as the former Electronic Resources Coordinator for the PALCI consortium, and more recently, Digital Communications Associate at the Center for Philosophy of Science at the University of Pittsburgh. Cheryl holds a Bachelor of Arts in Studio Art and a Master of Library Science, both from the University of Pittsburgh. She is also an active volunteer and webmaster at the American Branch of the Richard III Society.
Amanda Rogers
Marketing Communications Associate

Amanda joined BioOne in the summer of 2021 as the organization’s Marketing Communications Associate, bringing many years of experience in nonprofit marketing and visual communication. Prior to joining BioOne, Amanda was Media Associate for the environmental nonprofit, Mohonk Preserve. She also taught Communication courses at the State University of New York at New Paltz. Amanda holds a Bachelor of Science in Speech Communication, focusing in Organizational Communication from SUNY New Paltz and a Master of Arts in Communication from the University of Memphis, focusing in Rhetorical Studies.
OurBoard of Directors
Kent E. Holsinger, Chair
Kent E. Holsinger, Chair
Dr. Holsinger is a Professor of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology and Adjunct Professor of Statistics at the University of Connecticut, Storrs. His previous awards include the Chancellor’s Information Technology Award (2000), the Service Excellence Award from the Connecticut Chapter of the AAUP (2007), and the Faculty Award for Research Excellence – Sciences from the UConn Alumni Association (2007). He was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2003 and of the Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering in 2010. In 2006, he received the Centennial Award from the Botanical Society of America and the Distinguished Alumni Award from the College of Idaho in 2008. Professor Holsinger is well known for his work in population genetics, plant evolutionary biology, and conservation biology. His most influential work involves the development and analysis of mathematical models that describe the evolution of plant mating systems and of statistical models used to analyze genetic variation within populations. His most recent work on mechanisms responsible for the extraordinary diversity of plants in southwestern South Africa has uncovered a complex interplay between adaptation to environmental gradients and the accumulation of random differences among geographically isolated population. This work involves students, post-doctoral research associates, faculty, and collaborators at the University of Connecticut, the University of California-Davis, the Australian National University, the University of Wageningen (Netherlands), the South African National Biodiversity Institute, and the South African Environmental Observation Network. Professor Holsinger is also a dedicated educator. He regularly teaches an undergraduate course in evolutionary biology and graduate courses in population genetics and conservation biology. For many years he taught in the introductory biology course for biology majors, and for nearly fifteen years, he co-taught a course in philosophy of science. He has supervised the work of nine Ph.D. students and one M.S. student, and served on the advisory committee of more than fifty students in seven departments and two colleges. In addition, he has served as an external reviewer on Ph.D. dissertations at four universities in the U.S., three in Europe, and two in Australia, and he has served as the thesis advisor for four University of Connecticut Honors scholars and one University Scholar. Professor Holsinger has a long history of service to his department, the University, and the profession, including his service for a year and a half as an acting department head. He recently served as Chair of the Senate Executive Committee, stepping down when he took up his current position as Vice Provost for Graduate Education and Dean of the Graduate School. He has served as President of the American Genetics Association, the American Institute of Biological Sciences, and the Botanical Society of America. Since 2000, he has served as Chair of the Board of Directors of BioOne. He has served on grant and fellowship review panels for many federal agencies, and on the editorial board of eleven scientific journals.
Alan Savitzky, Vice Chair
Alan Savitzky
Alan H. Savitzky is Professor and Head of the Department of Biology at Utah State University. Prior to his current position, he served briefly as a Lecturer at Cornell University before joining the faculty of Old Dominion University, where he served for 29 years. Dr. Savitzky completed his undergraduate training at the University of Colorado and his graduate degrees at the University of Kansas, receiving a Smithsonian Predoctoral Fellowship to conduct his dissertation research at the National Museum of Natural History. Dr. Savitzky has served on several society boards, including three terms on the Board of the American Institute of Biological Sciences, and has served as President of the Society for the Study of Amphibians and Reptiles (SSAR) and the American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists (ASIH). He is presently in his second term as Treasurer of the World Congress of Herpetology. Dr. Savitzky also served as a rotating program director in the Division of Biological Infrastructure at the National Science Foundation. Dr. Savitzky’s research concerns the integrative biology of amphibians and reptiles, especially snakes. His specific interests include the evolutionary morphology of feeding and defensive structures, evolutionary development of sensory organs and glands, and most recently the evolution of chemical defenses in snakes. Dr. Savitzky’s recent work has been focused on Asian snakes that sequester toxins from toads consumed as prey and later deploy those toxins for their own defense. That work has involved extensive collaborations with biologists and chemists in the U.S. and Japan. Dr. Savitzky also has been involved in various conservation issues and directed a 19-year ecological study of a state-endangered rattlesnake in Virginia before moving to Utah in 2011. Dr. Savitzky has advised 18 graduate students and three postdoctoral researchers, and he has taught courses in comparative vertebrate anatomy, herpetology, and conservation biology. He is a co-author, with five colleagues, of the textbook Herpetology.
Catherine Murray-Rust, Treasurer
Catherine Murray-Rust, Treasurer
Catherine Murray-Rust became Vice Provost for Learning Excellence at Georgia Tech in January 2012. She also serves as Dean of Libraries, a post she has held since August 2008. In addition to her administrative responsibility for several academic programs, 160 faculty and staff, almost 500 square feet of central campus space, and a library budget of about 14 million, she is teaching again this term in the Honors College and serving as the faculty advisor to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society’s Team in Training. She is looking forward to getting to know students better as a group leader in the Oxford Study Abroad program in 2012. She previously served as the Dean of Libraries at Colorado State University, and Associate University Librarian at Oregon State University. She worked at Cornell University Libraries for more than 20 years in a variety of positions, including reference librarian, training and implementation librarian in the Systems Office, and Associate University Librarian. Her final position at Cornell was Director of Campus Delivery for the university’s project to reengineer business systems and install new software. From 1973 to 1977, she worked for Reuters News Agency and Oxfam/VOCAD in London. Murray-Rust’s educational background includes a charter in Librarianship from the Library Association of Great Britain (1976), a graduate degree in Library and Information Studies from the University of London (1974) and a bachelor’s degree in political science and history from Mount Holyoke College. She also completed graduate studies in international nutrition at Cornell University (1979), graduate coursework and independent study in African politics and international relations at the University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania (1971-72) and participated in an internship with the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (1969). She currently serves as Georgia Tech’s representative to the Association of Research Libraries, is a board member of the Association of Southeastern Research Libraries and Georgia’s Galileo and RACL executive committees. She is treasurer of BioOne, a non-profit publishing initiative based in Washington DC. She has been a mentor both in the Library Administration and Management Association’s (LAMA) leadership initiative and the Association of Research Libraries diversity program. She was recently appointed to ARL’s Diversity and Leadership Development Committee.
Joni Blake, Secretary
Joni Blake, Secretary
Joni Blake currently serves as the Executive Director of the Greater Western Library Alliance. The Alliance is a prominent partner and dynamic leader in the national and international scholarly arenas of learning and research. Blake received her MA in Library and Information Science from the University of Missouri-Columbia and her PhD Educational Leadership and Higher Education Administration at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. In 2007, Blake joined BioOne’s Board of Directors. She has served on BioOne’s Audit Committee since 2008 and the Effectiveness Committee since 2011. Prior to her time at BioOne, Blake served as Director of Library and Information Services, Director of Institutional Research, and as the Interim Director of Information Technology at Stephens College. In 2004, Blake accepted a position as Stephens College’s Associate Vice President of Academic Affairs before moving to GWLA in 2007. As Executive Director of GWLA, Blake is responsible for leading a consortium of 32 research libraries located across 16 Midwestern and Western states. This consortium is dedicated to scholarly communication, interlibrary loan services, shared electronic resources, cooperative collection development, digital libraries, staff development, and continuing education. Blake has presented papers at the International Coalition of Library Consortia and at the Center for Research Libraries. She has also been active in the organization of successful conferences and workshops related to grants from IMLS, WESTPAS, LYRASIS, and WEST.
Raym Crow
Raym Crow
Chain Bridge Group Managing Partner Raym Crow has over 25 years’ experience in academic publishing and library information services, specializing in strategic business planning, information service development, and market management. Crow has help publishers – large and small, nonprofit and commercial – plan and implement digital information services, extend the reach and revenue potential of existing products, and open new markets. His educational background includes a B.A. from Whittier College and an M.A. and a Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania.
Taran Grant
Taran Grant
Taran Grant is Full Professor at the University of São Paulo (USP) in the Departament of Zoology of the Institute of Biosciences and Associate Curator of Amphibians in the Museum of Zoology. He is Canadian but has lived abroad since 1994 when he moved to Colombia to pursue his undergraduate degree at the Universidad del Valle, in Cali. In 1998, he was awarded a joint fellowship from the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) and Center for Environmental Research and Conservation to pursue graduate studies in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Columbia University. He completed his PhD in 2005 and received a post-doctoral fellowship in computational biology at AMNH. In 2007, he joined the faculty of the Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul in Porto Alegre, Brazil and then moved to USP is 2011. In collaboration with students and colleagues, he studies the evolution of amphibian diversity from a variety of perspectives, from the theory and practice of phylogenetic inference to toad migration, the invasion biology of the American bullfrog in Brazil, and the evolution of chemical defense. Since 2013, he has been Senior Editor/Editor-in-Chief of the South American Journal of Herpetology, published by the Brazilian Society of Herpetology.
Robbie Hart
Robbie Hart
Robbie Hart is a scientist at the Missouri Botanical Garden, where he directs the William L. Brown Center (WLBC), a team of researchers dedicated to the study of useful plants, understanding the relationships between humans, plants, and their environment, the conservation of plant species, and the preservation of traditional knowledge for the benefit of future generations. His own research is on high-elevation plant ecology, climate change, and ethnobotany. Hart received his undergraduate degree from Swarthmore College, where he was part of the Swarthmore Libraries Internship funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. After earning his BA in linguistics in 2004, he worked in academic and public libraries before beginning graduate studies in biology at University of Missouri in 2008. His Ph.D. was awarded in 2015, and he has worked at the Missouri Botanical Garden as Research Specialist, Assistant Curator, and (since 2020) as William L. Brown Curator of Economic Botany and Director of the WLBC. Hart was among the first group of BioOne Ambassador Award winners in 2018.
Chris Makowski
Chris Makowski
Dr. Christopher Makowski is the Senior Vice President and Assistant Director of the Coastal Education and Research Foundation (CERF), the official publisher of the international Journal of Coastal Research (JCR). He also currently serves as President and Senior Advisor to the International Coastal Symposium (ICS), a biennial international conference that has previously been held in Iceland, Portugal, South Africa, Australia, Brazil, South Korea, Poland, Spain, Florida (USA), and the United Kingdom.
Dr. Makowski received B.Sc. (Marine Biology), M.Sc. (Marine Ecosystem Diversity), and Ph.D. (Coastal Geoscience and Remote Sensing of Biogeomorphological Resources) degrees from Florida Atlantic University of Boca Raton, Florida, USA, and has worked for over 25 years in the coastal research community, holding titles of Assistant Director (Coastal Planning & Engineering’s Marine Science and Biological Research Department), Principal Marine Scientist (Collier County, Florida, USA), and Senior Editor (Springer’s Coastal Research Library [CRL] Series and Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences Series [EESS]). Dr. Makowski has also published numerous peer reviewed papers, authored multiple book chapters, and co-edited various encyclopedia volumes.
In addition to these accomplishments, he is professionally recognized by the American Academy of Underwater Sciences (AAUS) and is certified as a Master Scuba Diver Trainer (MSDT) through the Professional Association of Diving Instructors (PADI), having logged over 2,000 underwater dives on six different continents. Other professional registrations, certifications, and accreditations include: Coastal Education and Research Foundation (CERF) Board of Directors (Trustees), BioOne Board of Directors, International Society for Reef Studies (ISRS) Member, Florida Association of Environmental Professionals (FAEP) Chapter Member, American Academy of Underwater Sciences (AAUS) Registered Diving Safety Officer, American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Member, National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) Certified Marine Mammal and Protected Species Observer, Professional Association of Diving Instructors (PADI) Open Water Scuba Diver Instructor, PADI Enriched Air Nitrox Specialty Instructor, PADI Emergency First Responder (CPR/FirstAid/AED) Instructor, PADI Specialty Underwater Photographer Instructor, and Divers Alert Network (DAN) Sustaining Member.
Eric Nagy
Eric Nagy
Eric S. Nagy is on the faculty in the Department of Biology at the University of Virginia, and is Associate Director of Mountain Lake Biological Station (MLBS). He has been at the University of Virginia since 1996. He received his Ph.D. in Population Biology from the University of California, Davis in 1995, and his B.A from Oberlin College in 1985. In addition to the administrative duties of directing a large residential biological field station, Dr. Nagy runs the 25-year-old NSF-funded Research Experiences for Undergraduates Site program, curates museum collections and databases, and directs an artist-in-residence program at MLBS. Dr. Nagy currently serves on the Board of Directors of two other professional societies – the American Institute of Biological Sciences (since 2006), and the Organization of Biological Field Stations (OBFS, since 2000). He was President of OBFS 2004-2006. Dr. Nagy was an active planner of the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) at regional and national levels and has participated in numerous local and national review and advisory boards. Dr. Nagy has been PI of an NSF REU-Sites program at Mountain Lake Biological Station since 1998. Nagy’s research focuses on the ecological, reproductive, and selective dynamics driving the evolution of natural plant hybrid populations.
A. Townsend Peterson
A. Townsend Peterson
Town Peterson is University Distinguished Professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, and Curator in Ornithology in the Biodiversity Institute, at the University of Kansas. He is co-appointed in the following departments and programs: Global and International Studies, African and African American Studies, Latin American Studies, Department of Geography, and Environmental Studies, and has been an adjunct faculty member in the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México for more than two decades. He also co-advises students based at the University of the Western Cape (Cape Town, South Africa), Cape Peninsula University of Technology (Cape Town, South Africa), and Isfahan University of Technology (Iran), among others. Peterson’s research extends broadly across questions of the geography of biodiversity. That is, he focuses on the question of why species and other elements of biodiversity are where they are, and why they are not where they are not. His approaches to this question range from quantitative geography and remote sensing analyses to molecular phylogenetics and phylogeography. His training is in systematic ornithology, but his work extends broadly across many taxa, including pathogens and questions of the geography of disease transmission. His research productivity can be seen here. Peterson has also worked many years in the area of improving and opening access to scientific data and scholarly publications. Specifically, he led and co-led several initiatives in promoting and enabling access to data associated with museum specimens (see, e.g., vertnet.org). He co-led efforts to develop, pass, and implement a faculty open access policy at the University of Kansas, the first in the nation at a public university, and has dedicated years of effort to supporting the broader goal of opening access to KU scholarship. Most recently, he has dedicated considerable time and effort to development of the Biodiversity Informatics Training Curriculum (biodiversity-informatics-training.org), an effort to create open-access teaching materials for the field of biodiversity informatics via in-person training activities in cities across Africa, with all program activities captured digitally and served via YouTube.
Mira Waller
Mira Waller
Mira Waller is the Associate University Librarian (AUL) for Research and Learning Services at the University of Virginia Library. Waller serves on the Library’s Senior Leadership Team, providing leadership for the subject liaison program, the teaching and learning program, faculty programs, and specialized user services. She guides the Library’s information services, including reference, reserves and circulation. Waller also oversees the development of services and programming for new and evolving teaching and research tools and methods, including those for digital scholarship, multimedia production and use, and data management and analysis.
Previously, Waller was the Department Head of Research Engagement in the North Carolina State University Libraries. She has been an active participant in the movement to re-envision the role of the subject liaison, both at NC State and nationally, contributing to the development of tools and training to enhance support for research. Before joining the NCSU Libraries, Waller was Director of Publishing Services for Project Euclid, an online community and platform for mathematics and statistics scholarship, managed jointly by Cornell University Library and Duke University Press. In a previous life she was also an archivist and worked in collection management.
James F. Williams, II
James F. Williams, II
James F. Williams, II served as the Dean of Libraries at the University of Colorado at Boulder from 1988 to 2017. His career includes 13 years as a Medical Librarian and 32 years in research library administration. His research interests include health sciences librarianship, strategic planning, leadership in research libraries, and resource sharing and networking. He is currently a member of NASULCG’s Information Technology Board, Chair of the Board of Directors of the Center for Research Libraries, Chair of the Board of Directors of the Big-12 Plus Libraries Consortium, a member of the NIH PubMed Central National Advisory committee, a member of the Docutek.com Advisory Board, a past member of the Board of Directors of Educom and a past member of the Board of Directors of the Association of Research Libraries (ARL). Williams is a member of the Board of Visitors for Libraries at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a member of the Visiting Committee at the School of Library and Information Science at the University of Pittsburgh. He has chaired the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) K.G. Saur Award Committee and is currently a member of the Editorial Board of the Journal College and Research Libraries. He is a member of the Board of Boulder Community Hospital, the Boulder Chamber of Commerce, and a Trustee of the Denver Art Museum. He holds baccalaureate and graduate degrees from Morehouse College and Atlanta University.
OurStory
A CommunityNeed
In the basement of Teller’s Restaurant in Lawrence, Kansas in 1999, a group of far-sighted librarians and publishers met to discuss a growing concern in the scholarly community – that electronic publishing in the sciences was being ceded to commercial interests. Without an alternative, this shift presented a challenge for small to mid-size society publishers. Those who wanted to remain independent risked exclusion from the online publishing arena.
With initial ideas scribbled on a napkin, the BioOne of today began to take shape: a collaborative endeavor with stakeholders from both sides of the scholarly publishing enterprise—librarians and publishers—working together to address the inequities posed by commercial journal publishing.
OurFounding
Later that year, BioOne was incorporated as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation, founded by Allen Press, AIBS, the Big 12 Plus Libraries Consortium (now GWLA), The University of Kansas, and SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition).
BioOne was also made possible by the library community, specifically the 123 libraries who pledged initial funds. Given the strained library budgets of the time, these institutions committed to invest in a project that, despite everyone’s best intentions, could very well have failed. This community support further demonstrated the demand for a viable alternative to the pricing practices of commercial publishing.
Within five years, BioOne was self-sustaining. In its seventh year, BioOne had repaid every charter supporter in full. We include a list of these supporters below and thank them wholeheartedly.
BioOneToday
BioOne is more than a database. BioOne is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to the firm belief that we achieve more when we work together and balance the needs of the whole community for a sustainable future. Our flagship product, BioOne Complete, continues to provide researchers with high-impact science, libraries with a cost-effective collection of curated content, and publishers with a dynamic, community-based platform for their journals.
With an ever-changing landscape accelerated by new technologies and business models, we know there’s more work to do—and we’re excited to face these challenges as an integral member of the scholarly community.
TheTimeline
Elementa: Science of the Anthropocene, BioOne’s first open access journal, launches in response to the urgent need for publicly available research on climate change.
Launched and incubated by BioOne since 2013, in January Elementa moves to the University of California Press, where it will continue to grow and actively promote research on critical issues of the Anthropocene. Continuing its portfolio growth, in September BioOne launches the BioOne Career Center, a new trusted destination for both jobseekers and employers across a wide array of scientific fields.