The Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography (ASLO) is pleased to announce Scott Hotaling and Bridget Deemer will serve as the society’s next Raelyn Cole Editorial Fellows. The Raelyn Cole Editorial Fellowship is a unique opportunity for early-career aquatic scientists to gain expertise in scientific publishing, including open-access publishing, peer review, and scientific writing. Hotaling will begin his fellowship in April 2019; Deemer will begin her two-year term in 2020.
Scott Hotaling is a Postdoctoral Research Associate at Washington State University. His research spans a variety of disciplines from community ecology to genome biology with a focus on high-elevation and high-latitude ecosystems. He is particularly interested in how climate change will affect alpine stream ecosystems in North America and is part of a team seeking to address this question using long-term data in the Teton Range of Wyoming.
“As a Raelyn Cole Fellow, I will have the opportunity to interact with leaders on both the publishing and research sides of my field as well as their counterparts at Wiley, become more informed about how the publishing process works from the inside out, and strengthen my own skills as a scientific communicator,” said Hotaling. “I’m excited to work with a talented, diverse group of people to help shape the future of L&O Letters. I’m particularly motivated to work towards a better understanding of biases in the publishing process while seeking practical solutions to make publishing a more equitable process regardless of country of origin, socioeconomic status, gender, or any other factor.”
Bridget Deemer is a postdoctoral ecologist with the U.S. Geological Survey’s Southwest Biological Science Center in Flagstaff, Arizona, USA. As an aquatic biogeochemist, her research crosses scales to investigate how lakes and reservoirs can affect the transport and transformation of carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, and other biologically relevant elements. She is also interested in the science/policy boundary and currently contributes scientifically to the Glen Canyon Dam Adaptive Management Program.
Deemer enjoys discussing and practicing the art of scientific writing. She developed and co-led a scientific writing group for graduate students during her PhD and is excited about the opportunity to learn more about the editorial process through the Raelyn Cole Editorial Fellowship program. “I am thrilled to have been selected for this unique fellowship opportunity. The editorial process plays a critical role in how our science progresses, and I believe L&O Letters is taking exciting steps to modernize the process as well as to make it more transparent. I look forward to being part of the conversation about how to further develop the capacity of the journal and to make the editorial process as useful as possible to scientists,” said Deemer.
The Raelyn Cole fellowship was established through a generous gift from Dale Cole and family in memory of Raelyn Cole, Managing Editor of ASLO’s flagship journal, L&O, from 1965 to 1996, and recipient of ASLO’s Distinguished Service Award. Fellows serve for a two-year period and participate in the editorial process by reviewing articles, working with the editor-in-chief on a range of initiatives for the journal and ASLO including outreach to other early-career scientists, additional independent projects initiated by each fellow, and attending the annual publishing meeting with Wiley staff.
“This fellowship is critical to meet one of our goals at L&O Letters— to include and provide opportunities for early-career scientists in scientific publishing. I am thrilled at the response that we have gotten about this program from early career researchers who are eager to gain more first-hand experience with publishing. The two scientists that have been selected this year are exceptional scientists with innovative and creative ideas about writing and publishing. ASLO is fortunate to have this caliber of scholars to join the editorial team at L&O Letters and I look forward to working with them on exciting new efforts,” said L&O Letters Editor in Chief Patricia Soranno.