Career summary

Since completing a DPhil in English Literature, I have held a range of scholarly publishing roles with Oxford University Press, Bloomsbury Academic and Wiley. As Publisher for Earth and Environmental Sciences at Wiley, I began to specialise in emerging scholarly communications with particular emphasis on Open Science and Open Data. I could see that these developments represented huge opportunities for increased access, re-usability and transparency of research. At the same time, they were causing seismic disruptions; to workflows, administrative burdens, cultures, technical and infrastructural requirements, and skills.

In response to these shifts in requirements, I set up my own consultancy, MMC Ltd in 2015. As well as advising institutions, learned societies and commercial publishing companies, and writing and presenting widely on scholarly communications topics, I was an Associate Fellow at the University of Reading between 2015-20. Last October, with three others, I set up MoreBrains (website pending at time of writing). An official member of the Cooperative movement, MoreBrains models the behaviours and values that we’re seeking to encourage in the research landscape: including openness, accountability, inclusivity, community-orientedness, and curiosity.

Meanwhile, I have been contributing actively to research, open scholarship and publishing initiatives. I have Co-chaired several Research Data Alliance Working Groups (including Data Publishing and Exposing Data Management Plans), I’m on the Steering Committee for the Force11 Scholarly Communication Institute (FSCI), Vice Chair of the Board of the data repository, Dryad, and an Editorial Board Member of the Data Science Journal. In the next few months, I will be running the Lightning Posters Sessions at the forthcoming Researcher to Reader Conference (I’m also on the Advisory Board), and will be presenting at PIDapalooza and teaching at the next FSCI summer school.

 

I became the Book Reviews Editor, first for the EASE journal European Science Editing, then as part of its new sister publication EASE Digest, nearly three years ago. I’ve been enjoying the shift from publishing journals to contributing to their running! (I also review/am on the Board for several other titles, including Learned Publishing and Data Science Journal). Since joining EASE, I’ve been so impressed by the way the EASE members have supported its publications and other communication channels – from volunteering to review books, to conducting lively ethics discussions via the Discussion Forum, and attending the conference and online sessions.

I was co-opted to serve on EASE Council in September 2021.

Conflict of interest declaration