Publishing at Nature journals
Mirella Bucci, PhD
Nature Chemical Biology
Nature Publishing Group, San Francisco, USA
.
I graduated with a PhD in molecular and cellular biology from Washington University and then moved onto a postdoctoral position at Stanford, working on protein aggregation in the context of neurodegenerative disease. Like many PhDs who have decided not to pursue a faculty position, I pursued positions in on science communication. My first non-academic position was as the cell biology editor for Nature in London. After moving back to the US, I briefly worked as a copywriter at a healthcare communications agency and as a freelance science writer. I am currently a senior editor at Nature Chemical Biology in the San Francisco Nature office. Along with three other editors, we evaluate >100 manuscripts a month and mange peer review of those that make the first editorial cut. The editors manage the peer review process and decide based on expert reports what changes will need to be made to the manuscript - including what experiments the authors should focus on or not - in order for it to be published. A bit of writing is involved, including of editorials and synopses of our papers and interesting papers in the wider literature.
I have recently spoken to numerous academic audiences on how to publish in Nature journals, publishing and scientific writing as ‘alternative’ careers, and on publishing issues such as open access and open research. In my presentation, I will discuss the mechanics of scientific publishing at the Nature journals in terms of our role in the scientific community and will also share my thoughts about what makes for a successful Nature journal paper.