Valda Vinson – who joined the Science staff more than twenty years ago, recently worked as an editor, research – became the editor-in-chief of the journal on August 1. determination.
“Valda Vinson is one of the most accomplished and experienced leaders in science publishing,” said Science Editor-in-Chief Holden Thorp. “The family of Science and the scientific community have already benefited greatly from his judgment and his talents, and it is good for all of us that it will continue for years to come.”
Throughout his Science career, Vinson has been recognized for improving scientific collaboration and for developing policies to improve the quality of academic publications. He has recently worked as a leader in creating standards to support transparency and reproducibility, for example. And until 2017, he was very helpful in Science using the Transparency and Openness Promotion, which is called TOP – which explained how to improve research conditions, transparency and reliability when combining journals.
“It’s a pleasure to work with others in publishing knowing that we are all committed to the same things,” he said. “We are all in this together; we all want to publish science that can be understood and reproduced.”
In his new role as executive director, Vinson will continue to build strength in key areas of administrative policy, managing the city’s Science in planning related to its external partners. He is committed to focusing on policy issues where media journalism can benefit from change. “The more we ask about the equality of the authors on the journals,” said Vinson, “the more buy-in we can achieve in improving the publication’s work and results.”
While Science is at the forefront of many policy initiatives, Vinson says there are others that the journal — along with journals in other publishers — can improve and expand policy. For example, he is eager to see the clarity and restoration of the strategies he helped develop, many of which focused on health, expanded to other fields.
Continuing the commitment to open science and information technology is another goal of Vinson’s. A July 2021 blog post by Science’s director of physical science research, Jake Yeston, confirmed the progress of Science so far in ordering authors to place data and symbols in warehouses for permanent storage, can be found. But Vinson said there is more work to be done to balance data protection with the need for privacy on selected data.
As associate editor, Vinson said he is excited to work with a large group of professionals in the Science family of journals to support the publication of high-quality, world-class research at the same level and speed. the scientific press. “Our job is to publish the latest science and communicate it in a way that scientists in any field can understand,” he said.
He highlighted the work of the Science partners in the Insights, News, Visuals and Science Press Package teams: “Our Science partners take the work we publish and help it reach a wider audience.”
Some of these groups also help scientists communicate their research to different people. “We will have a greater impact by shining a light on special circles like this, starting from the researchers themselves,” Vinson said. He is interested in the use of Twitter by scientists to publish their new work directly.
As associate editor, Vinson will oversee all activities related to peer review and research publication. In his previous roles in the journal – as associate editor, senior editor and deputy editor – he handled research studies in the areas of structural biology, biochemistry and biophysics. Most recently, as editor, research, he worked with fellow editors in the life sciences to produce important research papers. and consideration for publication.
“I have had the pleasure of knowing and working with Valda for much of her work in Science,” said Bill Moran, editor of the Science family of journals. “His passion for science and peer review throughout his career has earned him the trust of the scientific community and his colleagues, as well as his global reach, insight, relationship-building and understanding. in the scientific research world. I look forward to Valda’s success in this new role.