DONA Board of Directors

Robert E. Kahn is Chairman, CEO and President of the Corporation for National Research Initiatives (CNRI), which he founded in 1986 after a thirteen year term at the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). CNRI was created as a not-for-profit organization to provide leadership and funding for research and development of information infrastructure.

Stefan Eberhard is a partner of the law firm OBERSON ABELS. He advises on Swiss business law with a particular focus on M&A, corporate and contract law. He also advises foundations and associations, in particular those involved in the sphere of the international organizations active in Geneva. A particular strength of OBERSON ABELS is its strong focus on tax.

Antoine Geissbuhler is a Professor of Medicine, Vice-Dean for Humanitarian and International Affairs at Geneva University’s Faculty of Medicine, Director of the Division of eHealth and Telemedicine at Geneva University Hospitals. He is also President of the Board of the Health-On-the-Net Foundation, Past-President of the International Medical Informatics Association, and Fellow of the American College of Medical Informaticians.

Mr. Rashid Ismailov is the Former Deputy Minister of Russia's Ministry of Communications. In this position, Mr. Ismailov oversaw the development of the IT industry while continuing to be involved with international cooperation. Prior to that, Mr. Ismailov was responsible for the development of international relations in the field of Communications, the expansion of relations with foreign partners and the strengthening of Russia’s image as one of the leaders on the global market for information and communication technologies.

Mr. Maltz has over 4 decades of experience instigating, developing, and deploying technologies in the media and entertainment industry. He currently serves as chair of ISO/TC 36 Cinematography, the motion picture industry’s international technical standards body, and leads a consultancy specializing in technology strategy, standardization, and cross-industry collaboration.

Majed Al Mazyad has a hands on experience in the field of ICT spanning for more than 16 years. He is an experienced executive who has demonstrated technical and leadership skills at both the national and international levels. He has actively contributed in the development of important policies and regulations that helped shaping the telecom market in the Kingdom, boosting competition, and maintaining a good mix of market and regulatory involvement.

Ed Pentz became Crossref's first Executive Director when the organization was founded in 2000 and he manages all aspects of the organization to ensure that it fulfills its mission to make scholarly content easy to find, link, cite and assess. Ed is also on the ORCID board of directors and Treasurer of the International DOI Foundation.

Dr. Plale is the Michael A and Laurie Burns McRobbie Bicentennial Professor of Computer Engineering and Executive Director of IU’s Pervasive Technology Institute at Indiana University Bloomington (IU). Plale served at the US National Science Foundation (NSF) 2017 -2020. Plale’s research interests are in research infrastructure, open science and reproducibility, and AI accountability.

Ulrich Schwardmann was one of the founders of the ePIC Persistent Identifier Consortium for eResearch in 2014 and is chair of the ePIC Management Board. He was responsible for the Quality of Service strategy of ePIC and currently he is enforcing the standardization and use of PID Information Types and profiles. Ulrich has been involved in several RDA working groups since its foundation, and was involved in topics and outcomes directly related to the Digital Object Architecture.

Dr. Peter Wittenburg is an Executive Director of Research Data Alliance Europe (RDA EU). He is also a member of the RDA Technical Advisory Board (TAB) and a scientific advisor of the EUDAT. He has a background in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (Berlin). Previously, at the Max-Planck-Gesselshaft Institutes (MPI), he led a technical group of about 30 experts in the field of psycholinguistics.

Stephen Wolff brings over forty years of leadership in the development, management, and operations of network technologies and is regarded as one of the original visionaries and architects behind the Internet of today, including leading the development of NSFNET, a key precursor to the commodity Internet. Wolff's experience includes teaching and research in communication theory and networking, and development of ARPANET technology including the transition to TCP/IP.

Mr. Gao Xinmin is the Vice President of Internet Society of China, member of the Advisory Committee for the State Informatization, P. R. China and  member of Consultative Committee on UN Information Technology (CCIT)，China Association for Science and Technology (CAST). He graduated with a Master degree from the Department of Electrical Machinery of the Polytechnic Institute of Kalinin, Leningrad in the former Soviet Union.

Mr. Xihui Zhen is the CEO of Content Digital Innovation Technology (CDI), a software development company he founded in 2002. CDI is a member of the Coalition of Handle Services – China, the DONA Foundation’s Multi Primary Administrator (MPA) located in China. The Coalition of Handle Services – China was the first accredited MPA from the DONA Foundation. CDI primarily focusses on developing DOA based application solutions for all industries, creating DOA application tools to help others develop their own DOA based applications, as well as conducting DOA based research to help better apply the DOA technology.