The Ins and Outs of Scientific Publishing with Elsevier

Organizer

Yaihara Fortis, PhD

The New York Academy of Sciences

Elsevier Speakers

Josh Spieler

Publishing Director, Health Sciences

With over 25 years of scholarly journal experience, Josh Spieler is a Publishing Director in Elsevier's Health and Medical Sciences group. His portfolio includes many of the key society-owned titles in our global psychiatry list, such as Biological Psychiatry and Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry. Josh's first job after receiving his undergraduate degree was working as a content editor for the American Society of Civil Engineers on their primary list of journals, including Journal of Structural Engineering, Journal of Hydraulic Engineering, and Journal of Engineering Mechanics. After attending law school, Josh returned to scholarly publishing working with medical journals at Raven Press (now part of Lippincott Williams & Wilkins) and with professional textbooks at Wiley.

George Woodward

Publisher, Health & Sciences Group

George Woodward is a Publisher in Elsevier’s Health & Sciences group, where he manages a portfolio of dermatology and nutrition journals. Prior to joining Elsevier, he was the Managing Editor for two leading society journals, overseeing the journals’ editorial and review processes.

Lily Khidr, PhD

Senior Publisher, Engineering

Dr. Lily Khidr is an academic research scientist and a publisher for Elsevier in New York. She also serves as an adjunct faculty member in the School of Biological Sciences at Columbia University. She received a BS in molecular and cell biology from the University of California, Berkeley; an MS in physiological sciences from University of California, Los Angeles, and a MS/PhD in biological chemistry from the University of California, Irvine School of Medicine. She is a Fellow of United Nations Worldview Institute.

Her graduate training was spent focusing on uncovering the mechanisms by which mitochondrial genetics play a role in human cancer formation, with Professors Wen-Hwa Lee and Douglas C. Wallace, and she has been an instructor at undergraduate, graduate and medical school levels domestically and internationally. Alongside her academic work, she concomitantly upheld a position with the National Academy of Sciences-UIDP, managing projects that enable successful university and industry partnerships and is currently an active member of the UIDP Communications Committee.

After graduate school, Lily took on a corporate research opportunity with Nature Publishing Group and worked as an Editor for Nature Genetics. Her focus on personalized genomics led her to the American Association for the Advancement of Science with Science Magazine, where she was an Editor at the inception and launch of Science Translational Medicine. For the past 6 years, Lily oversees the editorial and financial health of a suite of journals covering Chemistry, Engineering, Environmental Science and Medicine, manages global academic and industrial strategic alliances, actively drives projects to enhance university-owned research commercialization, and pursues ways to further develop the business of knowledge dissemination in emerging regions, like Africa.

Angela Welch, PhD

Senior Publisher, Chemical and Biomedical Engineering

Angela received her B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. (2010) from the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (Troy, NY) where she investigated tissue engineering applications in peripheral nerve repair. As a result, her research interests include: (neural) tissue engineering, BioMEMs, micro/nano-patterning, scaffold design, and biological image analysis. She has authored three manuscripts and presented her work via poster and podium presentations at numerous national and international conferences and invited talks. Since then, Angela has translated her biomedical engineering background into publishing. In her current role as Senior Publisher at Elsevier, she oversees the editorial and financial health of a suite of journals dedicated to the area of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering. In 2012, she organized the inaugural Bionic Engineering Conference (Boston, USA) highlighting the state of the art in nature-inspired engineering solutions. Over the past five years, Angela has presented Author and Reviewer Workshops at universities, corporations, and conferences in the United States, Brazil, Europe, Asia, and Australia. She has also had the distinct pleasure of serving as a Guest Judge for the Northeast Bioengineering Conference Poster Competition (2014) and the Biomedical Engineering Society Undergraduate Design Competition (2015 Annual Meeting). Angela enjoys inspiring others to follow their passions in pursuit of a STEM or STEM-related career, whether at the K-12, collegiate, or post-graduate level.

Michael Weston

Executive Publisher, Health and Medical Sciences

Michael Weston is an Executive Publisher for Elsevier within the Health & Medical Sciences, STM Journals division. In this role, he oversees a portfolio of ophthalmology and pathology journals. Prior to joining Elsevier in 2013, he was Senior Editor for Springer Science+Business Media, managing a portfolio of biomedical engineering, cardiovascular, and toxicology journals and books, and a team of publishing staff. Prior to Springer, Michael was a Senior Editor at Wiley-Blackwell, managing journals in genetics and biochemistry. Earlier in his career, Michael worked on various short-term assignments at Elsevier including programming and editorial work on a novel online pharmaceutical database (xPharm), editorial work on pharmacology journals and Myler's Side Effects of Drugs, and a market assessment for Scopus. Michael holds a BS degree in Biology from Nazareth College of Rochester, an MS in Oncology and General Biology from the University at Buffalo–Roswell Park Cancer Institute and an MA in Pharmacology from Columbia University.