[Kingston Chapter] Leveraging your academic skills: Careers in Scientific Publishing

Description: Join the S2BN Kingston Chapter for an evening panel discussion featuring experienced professionals from scientific publishing houses. During this session, panelists will highlight how they embarked on their careers, what a day-in-life in a publishing house is like, how the field has changed in light of current events, e.g. COVID-19, and what advice they would give to those aspiring to leverage their academic skills to pursue a career in scientific publishing.

Objectives:

• Understand the makeup of publishing houses and the variety of careers involved in scientific publishing
• Learn what you need to start a successful career in scientific publishing
• Discuss the impact of current events (e.g. COVID-19 pandemic and growing environmental concerns) on the scientific publishing industry.

Speakers:

• Scott Behie, PhD - Scientific Editor, Cell Press
• Vrishali Parab, PhD - Production Editor, JMIR Publications
• Shanthi Keethadevan, HBSc - Customer Engagement & Retention, Elsevier

Agenda:

• 6:00 pm - 6:20 pm - Presentation 
• 6:20 pm - 6:45 pm - Moderated panel
• 6:45 pm - 7:00 pm - Q&A 

Biographies:

Scott Behie, PhD

Scott completed his PhD at Brock University studying microbial ecology, nutrient transfer in plant-microbe interactions, and microbial chemistry. He then did his post-doctoral work at UC Berkeley, where he applied his broad microbial background to investigate the composition and chemistry of naturally occurring microbiomes towards bioactive small molecule discovery. Scott enjoys interdisciplinary research and is interested in work that bridges gaps between distinct fields like ecology, molecular biology, microbiology, and biotechnology. He is passionate about scientific communication and working directly with authors along the editorial process. Scott is an avid fan of the LA Dodgers, enjoys cooking, and spending time with his family.   

Vrishali Parab, PhD

Vrishali Parab is a Production Editor at JMIR Publications, an open access scholarly journal publisher. After a PhD in policy studies and a move to another continent, she found publishing to be a fascinating pivot for her alt-academic career transition and pursued a graduate certificate in publishing from Centennial College in Toronto. At work, Vrishali enjoys tinkering with XML code, learning about metadata and accessibility aspects of digital production, analyzing contingent cases of ethics and impact in scholarly communication, and resolving authors’ questions and concerns about editorial and production processes. Overall, contributing toward a more open, equitable world has been a guiding principle that links Vrishali’s past and present careers.

Shanthi Keethadevan, HBSc

Shanthi is a Customer Engagement Consultant at Elsevier supporting large Academic and Government clients in Canada. Prior to this, she has also worked as a Global Market Development Manager for an engineering product also at Elsevier. She enjoys learning about the different types of research her customers are working on and helping them better understand how they can utilize the variety of databases and explore options for gaps in access. One of her favorite things about working directly with product end users is the opportunity to travel globally and within North America by way of these work opportunities and experience different cultures. Shanthi is a native of Toronto and completed her Bachelors Degree at the University of Toronto, majoring in Neuroscience. She currently lives with her family in NYC and is an aspiring gardener – well, whatever she can manage to grow in the concrete jungle.