A lot of people are involved from the submission to the online acceptance of an article. To let you meet who is handling your publications at Physiologia Plantarum (PPL), we started an interview series about the people working for the journal. We will kick-off this series with our Editor-in-Chief, Vaughan Hurry!
Vaughan is a professor at the Umeå Plant Science Center (UPSC) in Umeå, Sweden. He has undertaken his undergraduate studies in Canberra, Australia and moved to Canada for his PhD. He then did postdocs in Sweden, Australia and Germany, to finally settle in Umeå in 1998. His research addresses short- and long-term adaptations of plants to suboptimal environmental conditions, and the consequences of climate change on the ecosystem’s responses. His research group addresses this topic by investigating the signalling mechanisms and the resulting genetic responses in plants. Another topic is plant primary metabolism with a special focus on how it is modulated in response to changing environments, and how this influences the interaction between the plant and its belowground microbiome. If you want to read more about his research, feel free to visit his group’s webpage.
In addition to having his own research, Vaughan has first been an Editor and reviewer for PPL and then started as the Editor-in-Chief in 2007. One of his main contributions has been to successfully implement the publication of high-quality Special Issues on hot topics in plant science into PPL’s portfolio.
What is your favourite outdoor activity, Vaughan? And why?
I spend a lot of time outdoors, so it is difficult to choose, but I would say days spent flyfishing up in the mountains. Days spent under a big sky surrounded by beauty is a great source of peace, and there is always the hope that a fish might rise…
If you would not be a plant biologist, which other careers would you have chosen and why?
I trained as a forester, which is much the same thing as a plant biologist, but if I had not done that I would likely have gone towards farming or farm management. I like growing things.
What would be your advice if someone is interested to become an editor of a journal?
Do it! It is time-consuming, but we all publish so we all have a responsibility to contribute to, and to understand, all steps in the process. The main path to becoming an editor is to serve the journals you are interested in by being a frequent reviewer. This is the best way of developing professional contacts with editors, who will be the ones most likely to recommend you for an editorial position.
What would you say is the most important and/or underestimated aspect about journals?
A lot of journals, PPL being one of them, were started by learned societies to assist authors to publish their work. Despite the sometimes brutally high rejection rates we all experience as authors, that is still our motivation as journals and journal editors. There is a tendency today to view traditional journals as predatory. In one sense, and one sense only, that is true, in that it is the role of the peer-review process and the journal editor to select out the weak and in doing so, help keep the herd strong. The difference between the predator and an editor is that editors too have their turn as the caribou, so that selection is done with a good deal more understanding and compassion than most authors realize.
In case you would like to meet Vaughan and are not located far up in the north of Sweden, you could consider attending the ISME18 meeting in Capetown in August 2020, which Vaughan will most likely attend.
We hope you enjoyed this more personal insight into the staff of Physiologia Plantarum and we will keep you posted about more scientists that work here with us and for you!
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