Last March, the Society for Neuro-Oncology (SNO) and Oxford University Press named UCSF neuro-oncologist Susan Chang, MD, Editor-in-Chief of its flagship journal Neuro-Oncology. Since then, she has overseen an increase in the journal’s impact factor from 13.029 to 15.9, making it among the most influential journals in clinical neurology and oncology.
She also helped launch SNO’s Editorial Scholars Program to offer training on the peer-review process and mentoring to early career researchers. The program recruited its first cohort of 17 junior faculty members in July.
We spoke with Dr. Chang about her role, SNO’s educational mission, and the landscape of scientific publishing.
What motivated you start the Editorial Scholars Program?
There is no question that scientific publishing benefits many stakeholders – the field and neuro-oncology community, publishers and sponsors, authors, reviewers, the editorial team and, of course, the patient. Some of the biggest challenges in scientific publishing that junior faculty often face include not having the appropriate training and time to dedicate to the review process and not having knowledge of the publishing enterprise. Personally, I did not have an opportunity to learn about the publishing enterprise except through my positions as Editor-in-Chief for both Neuro-Oncology Practice and Neuro-Oncology. Similarly, I learned about the peer review process informally.