Webinar: My peer review story – A live discussion among researchers and reviewers

Typically, when we talk about peer review, we tend to focus on the peer review process, how it works, the challenges and problems involved in it, or new advances in peer review and potential solutions to make it more efficient. How often do we pause to think about the people behind peer review – the authors who deal with the process and the reviewers who perform the review? For example, do you recall your thoughts when you received your first ever peer review comments as an author? How did you deal with difficult or complex comments? Do you know what goes on in peer reviewers’ minds – what do they go through when performing a review on a paper, or how do they manage peer reviews along with their other personal and academic responsibilities?

Join this live discussion to unravel the unheard and unspoken experiences behind peer review and improve your understanding of it. Hear seasoned authors and reviewers share their peer review stories and learn from their experiences. Understand how you can manage your own mental health as you deal with your own peer review – both as an author and reviewer.

Date and Time: September 25, 2020 – 02.30 AM EDT

Speakers

Dr. Manu Saunders

 Dr. Manu Saunders is an ecologist at the University of New England, Armidale, Australia. Her research focuses on insect communities and ecosystem function in agricultural landscapes. Dr. Saunders has co-founded Wild Pollinator Count in 2014, Australia’s first national citizen science project focused on raising awareness about wild pollinators, and is part of Dynamic Lagoons, a collaborative project funded by the NSW Government through a partnership between the Saving Our Species and the Environmental Trust. Prior to embarking on a research career, she trained as a print journalist and worked in corporate communications. She is passionate about natural history and science communication. Dr. Saunders has over 50 publications to her credit, is on the editorial boards of Insect Conservation and Diversity and PLOS ONE, and has extensive peer review experience. She was recognized by Publons as a Top Reviewer in the field of Environmental Science in 2016. Dr. Saunders also maintains her own blog (Ecology is not a dirty word) through which she shares aspects of her journey and insights as a researcher and science communicator.

Dr. Thomas Agbaedeng

 Dr. Thomas A. Agbaedeng is a grant-funded research fellow at the School of Medicine, Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences at The University of Adelaide, Australia. Dr. Agbaedeng is actively researching the mechanistic drivers of cardiometabolic disorders, using high-throughput sequencing tools, in vitro and animal models, and computational models. In addition to preclinical, fundamental research, Dr Agbaedeng is interested and currently investigates novel biomarkers that can help improve the risk prediction and stratification of cardiovascular outcomes. He leads several international collaborative projects and is currently part of The Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Taskforce, geared towards improving the understanding of the cardiovascular manifestation of COVID-19. Dr Agbaedeng’s research has won several highly prestigious awards and accolades, including the Young Investigator Award at the European Heart Rhythm Association Congress, Barcelona, and has been presented at major international conferences. Additionally, he recently won the Tom Simpson Instrument Grant from the National Heart Foundation of Australia 2020. In the course of his career, Dr Agbaedeng has provided research supervision to honours students, technical and research guidance to PhD students, and led Journal Club tutorials for MBBS Honours students. He has authored and co-authored papers published in high impact journals, authored invited editorials, and published over 30 conference papers and proceedings. He has peer-reviewed papers (86 since 2019) for high-impact journals, such as Circulation, Canadian Cardiovascular Journal, Heart Rhythm, Laboratory Investigations (Springer Nature Groups), Journal of Clinical Medicine, and American Journal of Physiology.

Dr. Ola Al-Batayneh

 Dr. Ola Al-Batayneh, BDs, MDSc, JDB, FRACDS (PAED), is a Professor in Pediatric Dentistry at the Faculty of Dentistry, Jordan University of Science and Technology (JUST). After obtaining a Master’s degree in pediatric dentistry at the University of Queensland, Australia, she completed a Fellowship in pediatric dentistry from the Royal Australasian College of Dental Surgeons, Sydney, Australia. She was previously Assistant Dean and is currently Head of Department of Preventive Dentistry, Faculty of Dentistry, at JUST, and currently is Head of the Pediatric Dentistry Division both at JUST and King Abdullah University Hospital (KAUH). Her research interests and publications cover several topics related to pediatric dentistry, such as children with special needs, prevention, dental anomalies, remineralization of primary teeth, lasers and QLF. She has been a speaker at many local and international conferences on these topics. Ola serves as an Associate Editor for BMC Oral Health journal. She is Head of the Jordanian Board in Pediatric Dentistry Exam Committee at the Jordanian Medical Council. Details about her publications are available on her ORCID profile.

Dr. Shilpi Mehra (Moderator)

 Dr. Shilpi Mehra heads Publication Support Services at Editage, Cactus Communications.  A dentist by training, Dr. Mehra has majored in Epidemiology and Biostatistics in her Masters programs at Boston University and the Free University of Amsterdam. Before joining Cactus, she worked at the National Health Service (NHS) and Imperial College London for over 10 years, managing research delivery and auditing public health programs. With her extensive background in working with researchers in the academic and pharmaceutical space, she is passionate about using her experience to support authors through their publication journeys. In her role at CACTUS, Dr. Mehra has had the opportunity to work closely with authors as they navigate their (often tumultuous) paths to publication, including facing challenges such as desk rejections, multiple manuscript revisions following reviewer comments, and the emotional distress and anxiety associated with these. Her team is constantly looking for new ways to support authors in the process of journal acceptance, by offering services such as Pre-Submission Peer Review, Journal Selection, Journal Submission, and Response to Reviewer Comments.