You would need excellent management, writing, and communication skills.
Jennifer Griffiths, Ph.D.
Editorial Development Manager, North America
Royal Society of Chemistry (Washington DC office)
“The Royal Society of Chemistry is a scientific publisher based in the U.K., but I work in one of our U.S. offices. My team’s job is to work closely with our Executive Editors in Cambridge to raise the profile of our publishing program in the US, Canada and Mexico with the ultimate goal of increasing readership and authorship from these countries. I go to a lot of conferences and visit a lot of universities so I am often preparing for travel (setting meetings, becoming familiar with scientists’ research), traveling, or following up on travel (working with our team in Cambridge to solicit articles or providing more information to scientists on what we have discussed). Interpersonal and networking skills are very important in this field to build relationships with the community, but my team also spends time analyzing data (submissions, publications in our journals and competitors) and sets North American strategy for our journals, books and databases.”
Richard Kelly, Ph.D.
Executive Editor, Organic and Bioorganic journals
Royal Society of Chemistry (Cambridge UK office)
“As the Editor of five research journals, covering different areas of chemistry and life sciences, my role brings me into contact with some of the most important life science research – and the scientists carrying it out – on a daily basis. I lead the strategy for the journals, meaning I work with a team of dedicated editors to make sure we publish the latest research, disseminating it as widely as possible. Key to my role is ensuring that the journals meet the requirements of the communities they serve, which means I’m regularly in contact with world-leading scientists, often travelling to different continents to meet them.”
Diedre Ribbens, PhD
Technical Writing Specialist, Frestedt Incorporated
Freelance Writer and Editor, Self-Employed
"A typical day for me entails a full day at the office working with a small consulting firm where I write and edit documents for our clients in the medical device and pharma industries. To do this, I analyze clinical data, working with their marketing, regulatory and engineering teams, and present the benefits and risks of their devices in a format for review by regulatory authorities like the FDA. After work, I head home and work on one of my freelance projects: editing manuscripts for non-native English speakers, writing a science careers blog, or writing science news and journalism pieces. Both my full-time and freelance roles require a lot of time on social media, promoting either my company's work or my own work, so I need to stay up-to-date with online communities, new technologies, and science news. I love how each of my roles compliments the other, and the unique opportunities afforded therein. I get to travel for work, meeting with some of the top medical device companies in the world, and I also get to talk to some fascinating scientists for my freelance work."
Barbara Gastel, M.D., M.P.H.
Professor; Coordinator, Science Communication Graduate Program
Texas A&M University
"My work has lots of variety from day to day. So, rather than describing a typical day, I'll summarize a typical month. Usually, at least two half days per week I teach graduate courses in science writing, science editing, or related areas. Most months also include some medical school teaching, for example as a small-group leader. Each week I write blog posts for AuthorAID (a project to help researchers in developing countries to write about and publish their work) and do other work for this project. Many months include travel—be it to a national conference or overseas to lead a workshop on scientific writing. Meanwhile, there are writing projects to work on (ranging from a book review for a journal to the new edition of a book on scientific writing), and often there are editing projects. There also is the running of our science communication graduate program. And there are varied other items—such as giving talks to graduate student groups, presenting webinars, serving on university committees, and, of course, preparing for classes and grading student work. Finally, hardly a month goes by without my answering inquiries from individuals seeking nontraditional careers in science."
We thank Barbara Gastel, Jennifer Griffiths, Diedre Johnson and Rajendrani Mukhopadhyay for their assistance in compiling the above information.