Seminar 05 – Peer Review in Open Access Journals

Rachel joined PLoS ONE as an Associate Editor after completing her Ph.D. in chemistry at UC Berkeley. While at Berkeley, she was the Editor in Chief and Managing Editor for the Berkeley Science Review, a graduate student-run research magazine for intelligent non-specialist readers. At PLoS, she continues to pursue her interests in fostering communication within the scientific community and promoting scientific engagement with the public.

Barbara Goldman joined ASM as Director of Journals in January 2008. She works closely with the Chair of the ASM Publications Board and the 12 journal Editors-in-Chief to set publication policies, maintain consistently high standards, and implement new technologies, systems, and journal features. Since joining ASM, Barbara has helped launch two open access journals, mBio® in 2010 and Genome Announcements (genome™) in 2013. Barbara has over 25 years’ experience in scientific publishing and a research background in life sciences. She received her Ph.D. in developmental biology from the University of Chicago, followed by an NIH postdoctoral fellowship in cell biology at Rockefeller University. In her publishing career, Barbara most recently served as Senior Director of Scientific Programs at the Society for Neuroscience. There, she was responsible for The Journal of Neuroscience, the annual Neuroscience meeting scientific program, and several new neuroinformatics initiatives. Her previous positions include posts at the New York Academy of Sciences, John Wiley & Sons, Chapman & Hall, and Springer-Verlag New York.

In the role of VP and Director, Open Access for Wiley’s STM business, Rachel is responsible for the strategic direction and development of Wiley’s open access initiatives. Rachel joined Wiley in 2007 as Publisher for life sciences journals. Prior to that she spent 7 years at Nature Publishing Group in sales and publishing roles.

Michaela Torkar has overall editorial responsibility for BioMed Central’s peer review processes and editorial policies. She is responsible for the in-house editorial management of a group of flagship journals publishing broad-interest research articles and commissioned review content; this includes the two flagship journals of the BMC-series, BMC Medicine and BMC Biology, Biology Direct, as well as several titles that publish both Open Access research and commissioned subscription content, including Genome Biology (of which she used to be Editor), Genome Medicine, Critical Care, Arthritis Research &Therapy, and Breast Cancer Research. Michaela has a degree in biology from the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Munich and a PhD in Immunology from the University of Cambridge, UK. She joined BioMed Central in 2000 (soon after its launch) as a member of the Genome Biology editorial team.