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Annual Reviews appoints two Associate Editors-in-Chief

AR News Announcements, Company, News

Nonprofit publisher Annual Reviews is pleased to announce that Natalie DeWitt has been appointed Associate Editor-In-Chief and Corporate Secretary dividing her time between these roles. She will work alongside Richard Gallagher, President and Editor-In-Chief, and Jennifer Jongsma, who has also been promoted to Associate Editor-In-Chief and will continue in her current role as Director of Production.

Natalie’s extensive academic credentials include a Postdoctoral Fellowship in Cell Biology from Yale University, and a PhD in Cell and Molecular Biology from the University of Wisconsin. Her professional experience ranges from Senior Editor at Nature & Nature Biotechnology to Director of Scientific Affairs at Institute Pasteur Korea,  and most recently, the founder and sole proprietor of a strategic scientific communications consultancy.

Richard Gallagher, President and Editor-In-Chief said:

“The bonds between Annual Reviews and the over 500 world-class scientists that serve on our committees are unique in the publishing world and are at the heart of Annual Reviews success and relevance. Jennifer, Natalie and I will work together to support our Production Editors in maintaining strong relations between our organization and these key individuals. “

Natalie’s responsibilities are broad and include maintaining our existing high standards of governance, representing Annual Reviews at professional meetings, speaking at conferences, and prioritizing relationships with our Board and Editorial Committee members to ensure the continued smooth running of Annual Review’s collection of 47 journals in the life, biomedical, physical and social sciences.

Annual Reviews is a nonprofit publisher dedicated to synthesizing and integrating knowledge for the progress of science and benefit of society.  Journalists who require further information, access to our content or press contacts can visit the Press Center.

 

 

 

Eugene Garfield – 1925-2017 – a life of impact

AR News Company, News, Research Communication
Eugene Garfield. May 9th, 2007.

By Richard Gallagher, President and Editor-In-Chief of Annual Reviews. 

It is with great sadness that I write to share the news that Dr. Eugene Garfield, one of the longest serving members of the Annual Reviews Board of Directors, passed away yesterday (26th February 2017) at the age of 91. Throughout his tenure Gene provided invaluable and enthusiastic support to us.

That Gene’s life created an impact is undisputed.

He first mentioned the idea of an impact factor in science in 1955 and an article in JAMA tells the story of how he and Irving H. Sher created it. In research that he conducted in the late 1950s, he developed the concept of citation analysis, which provided researchers with a powerful network to identify, connect and retrieve information, decades before the internet.

Although he was an information scientist at heart, Gene’s entrepreneurial flair is revealed in a catalogue of highly successful business ventures. The products that he developed from this research, including Current Contents and the Science Citation Index, are still in use today. Gene founded a very successful business, the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI), to produce these products and they were for many years part of Thomson Reuters until their IP and Science business was bought out in 2016 (now Clarivate Analytics). 

His influence extended well beyond scientific information.  Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin acknowledged Gene in their academic work on PageRank, the algorithm that powers their company’s search engine, leading Gene to be described as “the grandfather of Google.”

My relationship with Gene and his wife Meher goes back prior to my arrival at Annual Reviews in May 2015. I was privileged to work with him between 2002 and 2010 as Editor and Publisher at The Scientist, a professional magazine for life scientists that Gene founded in 1986. He had boldly envisaged it as a daily newspaper for scientists distributed at campuses across the country, and we brought his vision to reality with The Scientist Daily, launched a decade ago. Ellis Rubinsten, an early employee of The Scientist who became Editor of Science, says that Gene’s encouragement of great science journalism ended up transforming both Science and Nature’s research coverage.

Gene was also a pioneering employer. The ISI office had a state-of-the-art childcare facility attached, maximizing convenience for the staff. And he trained and supported many of the female leaders in the publishing industry today. The awards that he inspired also give an indication of his interests, including The Eugene Garfield Residency in Science Librarianship and the ALISE Eugene Garfield Doctoral Dissertation Competition. He also supported and was a Board Member of Research!America.

News of a memorial service will be forthcoming and we will share it here. All of us at Annual Reviews offer our sincere condolences to his family. We are grateful for his life. He will be greatly missed. 

Image credit: Chemical Heritage Foundation to Wikimedia Commons. CC BY-SA.

Friday at AAAS 2017: A Science Salad

Suzanne K. Moses News

schedule-boardToday was a little bit of everything as I continued to get a feel for this years conference. I started off by checking in on some of the results from Obama’s 2013 BRAIN initiative to research new methods of treating and preventing brain disorders. This was the first all female panel I have seen at AAAS! It was really heartening to watch these engineers and researchers describe their projects. My favorite being the wearable PET scan!  No more having to lay perfectly still in a big tube and pretend you’re on a roller coaster. Now there’s a chance of getting valuable diagnostic data from people who cannot hold still or safely lay down. It’s quite amazing.

From there I headed to a lively discussion about the ethics of gene editing. I found one speaker’s comparison of IVF treatment and gene therapy very compelling. I next found myself listening to Daniel Nocera talk about the chemistry behind his artificial leaves that can turn sunlight, water, and carbon dioxide into fuel. I had to pull on all of my old high school chemistry lessons but I followed the discussion enough to be very impressed with the idea.

I especially enjoy the astronomy panels at every AAAS meeting, and usually come away counting down the months until a favored project launches. This year I was introduced to a coming exploration of Europa, one of Jupiter’s moons. Europa has an ocean over a rocky sea bed that is covered by a thick sheet of ice. Those rocks and water make it a good candidate for having some sort of life. NASA is planning for 20 days of battery life on the surface while carrying 42 kg of scientific instruments. The mission is currently planned for 2024–25.

With my head full of space dreams, I found a seat at Naomi Oreskes’s Plenary lecture titled “The Scientist as Sentinel” and listened to her history of scientists as political activists. I was thinking about the good timing of that lecture as I followed a group of young scientists out into the hallway and heard them making plans for the protest on Sunday.

Suzanne K. Moses is Annual Reviews’ Senior Electronic Content Coordinator. For 15+ years, she has played a central role in the publication of Annual Reviews’ online articles. Not a single page is posted online without first being proofed and quality checked by Suzanne.

Congratulations to Daniel S. Nagin, winner of the 2017 NAS Award for Scientific Reviewing

Liz Allen Awards

scireviewingWe are pleased to announce that the winner of the 2017 National Academy of Sciences (NAS) Award for Scientific Reviewing, presented this year in criminology, is Daniel S. Nagin. Dr. Nagin is the Teresa and H. John Heinz III University Professor of Public Policy and Statistics at Heinz College at Carnegie Mellon University, USA, and a Committee Member of the Annual Review of Criminology (which will publish in 2018).

He will receive his award during the Annual Meeting of the NAS in Washington, DC on Sunday, April 30, 2017 at 2pm (follow the live webcast #NAS154). Eva Emerson, Senior Editor (forthcoming digital magazine), and Samuel Gubins, Editor-in-Chief Emeritus, will attend the ceremony.

The NAS Award for Scientific Reviewing was established in 1977 through a gift from Annual Reviews together with the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) to recognize the importance of reviews to the scientific method. Annual Reviews currently sponsors the award in its entirety.

The award recognizes authors whose publications have reviewed important subjects of research, rendering a significant service to science and influencing the course of scientific thought. Since its establishment, the award has been presented to 39 recipients, two who have gone on to win a National Medal of Science in the Biological Sciences and two who proceeded to win a Nobel Prize.

Dr. Nagin is being honored for exemplary reviews of the scientific literature on the crime-prevention effects of criminal and civil sanctions. These reviews have altered the course of criminological theory and empirical research, and have greatly informed analysis of public policy. His work appears in many leading publications, including Annual Reviews, which is publishing an article and response from him in the 2017 volume of the Annual Review of Law and Social Science. 

new_logoAnnual Reviews is a nonprofit publisher dedicated to synthesizing and integrating knowledge for the progress of science and the benefit of society. To find out how we create our highly cited reviews and stimulate discussion about science, please watch this short video.

The NAS is a private, nonprofit society of distinguished scholars. Established by an Act of Congress, signed by President Abraham Lincoln in 1863, the NAS is charged with providing independent, objective advice to the nation on matters related to science and technology. The NAS is committed to furthering science in America, and its members are active contributors to the international scientific community.

 

 

Reengineering our website: why, what, and how?

Liz Allen Redesign

Every website needs a periodic refresh as the digital landscape is constantly evolving. Here at nonprofit publisher Annual Reviews, six years have elapsed since our last major redesign, and we wanted to upgrade our user experience. We are pleased to announce a number of site enhancements that will benefit our online community.

For readers:

  • Automatic optimization of on-screen experience for all devices and screen sizes, and seamless pairing to an institutional subscription
  • New article layout and functionality facilitates rapid scanning for easier online reading
  • Search functionality provides more flexible filtering with improved image, author, and multimedia results

For authors:

  • A new section highlights information for preparing the review that you were invited to write, including journal-specific requirements

For librarians:

  • Dedicated section provides improved, centralized navigation to Librarian and Agent resources
  • Specialized functions for account administration remain unchanged but we have enhanced account security

“We are delighted to offer our end-users and stakeholders a more modern, adaptable and intuitive experience,” said Director of Technology Paul Calvi. “This reengineering has been made possible thanks to the partnership between the talented crew here at Annual Reviews, our design agency Interactive Strategies and advances in our online publishing platform, Literatum by Atypon Systems Inc”.

new_logoSome of you may have noticed that our logo has also evolved. Our goal here was to make it just a little easier to read online. As for the different stripes, they represent the colored bindings of our print editions which have been such an important part of our history.

We welcome your feedback via Twitter or Facebook.

All chemists like flashes, bangs and smells – in conversation with Professor Richard N. Zare.

Liz Allen Journal News

Nonprofit research publisher Annual Reviews is fortunate to have the ongoing support of many illustrious researchers that serve on our Boards and Committees. Professor Richard N. Zare is the Chairperson of the Annual Reviews Board of Directors and the Marguerite Blake Wilbur Professor of Natural Science at Stanford University, USA.

laserRichard was interviewed about his life and work by his former postdoc Dr. Andrew Alexander, who is a reader in Chemical Physics from Edinburgh University in Scotland. Andy prepared a series of short videos from his conversation that vary in length from 2-4 minutes which makes the content highly watchable.

That the pair know each other well is immediately clear through the relaxed and frequently funny tone of the videos which have 13 themes ranging from one entitled “Motorbike Story” through “Mentoring a Research Group” (pictured below, the Zarelab, 2016).

zare

Across the video series, Richard tells self-deprecating stories from his early childhood and young adult years that shape the person he has become today. He also explains his professional path to success as a combination of a series of influential relationships combined with an innate curiosity which he believes is a key component for a productive scientific career.

As Richard says: “Follow your heart – find something you love and throw yourself into it.” Those wishing to dig deeper into his work with Laser-induced fluorescence (LIF) can read his Autobiographical article “My Life with LIF: A Personal Account of Developing Laser-Induced Fluorescence.” If you are interested in seeing some photos of the young Richard and finding out even more about his life then we invite you to read this additional article “The Hydrogen Games and Other Adventures in Chemistry.”