First author profiles: An update

 

We all know scientific research involves the work of many hands, and we also know that grad students, postdocs and others in the early stages of their careers find themselves working long hours for low pay and precious little job security all in the name of scientific advancement.

ASPB is always looking for ways to support early-career researchers (to learn more, see #ASPBforward and share your suggestions with ASPB President Judy Callis @judy_callis), and in June of 2018 we began asking first authors to tell us a little about themselves for our Plantae blog posts called “First Author Profiles”. If you’re the first author of an article in Plant Physiology, The Plant Cell, or Plant Direct, we’d be happy to post your profile on Plantae.org and share it on social media when your article is published. We think it’s great to let others get to know a little about the humans behind the science and we want to recognize your hard work too. Since we began this initiative in 2018, we’ve had nearly 500 authors profiled in Plant Physiology, over 300 in The Plant Cell, and approaching 100 in Plant Direct. Join in! We’d love to include you too (email me at [email protected]).

Sometimes authors ask if it’s OK to have more than one “first author” on an article and the answer is YES! Authors who contribute to an article equally can each be listed as first authors. We’d also be delighted to publish profiles for all the first authors on an article.

Congratulations to all the first authors out there – keep up the good work!