On Wednesday, C-GEM talked to Dr. Sofia Garakyaraghi, Associate Publisher for ACS Publications, and Dr. Megan Hochstrasser, Director of Publishing at Arcadia Science. Dr. Garakyaraghi provided a perspective on the traditional publishing system, while Dr. Hochstrasser talked about her role at a biotech startup looking to reinvent how scientists communicate their work.
Key Takeaways:
- Build a strong scientific foundation. Dr. Garakyaraghi and Dr. Hochstrasser’s training in the lab yielded essential skills for what they do today. Both work closely with scientists nearly every day, and their experience as researchers helps them communicate clearly with the scientists with whom they interface. Going through the publishing process as an author provides a valuable perspective on the other side as a publisher.
- Takeaways from the bench. You learn a lot more than just lab techniques as an academic. Dr. Garakyaraghi highlighted her postdoc as a time where she learned the most about mentorship and management, skills she often uses to manage her team of 60+ editors. Dr. Hochstrasser mentioned that she gained many diverse skills both as a graduate student and while managing communications and outreach at the Innovative Genomics Institute. It’s difficult to predict what would be helpful for a job as unique as publishing for a biotech startup. Her advice is to learn by doing and to explore many different activities.
-
Where do you even start? Dr. Garakyaraghi and Dr. Hochstrasser found their current workplaces through their networks. Additionally, job boards and societies specifically for publishing are great places to browse open positions and connect with people within the industry. Science communication communities also have great resources for finding publishing jobs outside the traditional ecosystem. Either way, the people within publishing and science communication are always willing to help people find their place within the community. Here are some of the resources they mentioned:
- ASAPbio community — Sign up to get invited to virtual events, join the community Slack group, etc. to promote open science, especially preprints. People post jobs here sometimes.
- PREreview Slack community — Lots of events, articles, etc. with a dedicated #jobs-and-opportunities channel.
- Wyoming Science Communication Initiative newsletter — Weekly newsletter with resources, trainings, events, and job listings.
- American Medical Writers Assocation job center — Also check out the main AMWA site for resources about training, certifications, etc.
- Scicommops mailing list — Sent out inconsistently but exclusively features scicomm jobs, often international.
- preLights — preLighters write short summaries of preprints. It’s a nice opportunity to contribute to open science and add a piece of writing to your portfolio.
- Council of Science Editors — A job board for where you can find job postings for publishers and editors across the industry.
- Society for Scholarly Publishing — A society for people involved in all aspects of scholarly publishing, from publishers to developers to printers and more.
Thank you to Drs. Garakyaraghi and Hochstrasser for taking the time to chat about their careers!