COPE council
Elizabeth Wager
Chair
Elizabeth (Liz) Wager is a freelance medical writer, editor and trainer. After a zoology degree from Oxford she worked for Blackwell Scientific Publications editing medical books. She then worked as a medical writer in the pharmaceutical industry (for Janssen-Cilag then Glaxo-Wellcome). She set up her own company, Sideview, in 2001. She has run training courses for doctors, journal editors and medical writers on five continents (including courses in China, India, Uganda, South Africa, Australia, the USA and all around Europe).
Sabine Kleinert
Vice-Chair
Sabine Kleinert studied medicine in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and the USA, and trained as a paediatrician in the UK and Belgium. After further specialist training in paediatric cardiology at Great Ormond Street Hospital in London and the Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne, Australia, and research training at the Texas Children’s Hospital, Houston, USA, she joined The Lancet as a full-time Medical Editor in 1998.
Richard O'Hagan
Treasurer
Richard O'Hagan is a solicitor specialising in media law, medical law and personal injury litigation. He currently practises from Brittons Solicitors in Beaconsfield.
Virginia Barbour
Secretary
Ginny Barbour's background in publishing comes from The Lancet, which she joined in 1999, becoming molecular medicine editor in 2001. She joined the Public Library of Science in 2004 and was one of the three founding editors of PLoS Medicine.
Riaz Agha
Council Member
Dr Riaz Agha is currently a junior doctor on a surgical rotation at Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. He also works as a Clinical Supervisor for Gonville & Caius College, University of Cambridge and is a National Institute of Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) Scholar. He is Founder, Managing and Executive Editor of the International Journal of Surgery.
Chris Graf
Council Member
Chris Graf is Associate Editorial Director in the medical journal division at Wiley-Blackwell. He is a member of the Wiley-Blackwell Publication Ethics Group, which in late 2006 published Best Practice Guidelines on Publication Ethics: A Publisher’s Perspective.
James Greenstone
Council Member
Dr Greenstone is a Psychotherapist and Police Behavioral Health Specialist, and has been in practice for over 40 years. He served as the Director of Psychological Services for the Fort Worth, Texas Police Department and as Adjunct Professor of Law at Texas Wesleyan University School of Law. He was the chief instructor in Hostage and Crisis Negotiations for the North Central Texas Council of Governments and has trained negotiators both nationally and internationally.
Trish Groves
Council Member
Trish Groves is a deputy editor of the BMJ and senior research editor. She studied medicine at the Royal Free Hospital School of Medicine, London, and then specialised in psychiatry, gaining MRCPsych. She was also an honorary research fellow at the School for Public Policy, University College London. Trish is a member of the international groups developing the SPIRIT statement on trial protocols and updating the CONSORT statement on reporting randomised controlled trials.
Charlotte Haug
Council Member
Charlotte Haug gained an MD from the University of Oslo 1985, and was awarded a PhD in infectious diseases and immunology from the same university in 1999. From 1985 Charlotte worked for 10 years in clinical medicine and research at the National Hospital in Norway. For the next five years she worked in the organisation, priority setting and supervision of healthcare systems in Norway as well as globally, working for both the National Board of Health and the Department of Health in Norway.
Craig Phelan
Council Member
Margaret Rees
Council Member
Margaret Rees is a Reader in reproductive medicine at the Nuffield Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, University of Oxford, Honorary Consultant in medical gynaecology and a Fellow at St Hilda's College, Oxford and a Visiting Professor at the University of Glasgow and the Karolinska Institute.
Her areas of research and clinical interest are menopause and menstrual disorders and she has over 250 publications. She has edited 20 books in this area: two of which were highly commended in BMA book awards.
Lance Small
Council Member
Lance Small is the Editor of Communications in Algebra. He is Distinguished Professor, Emeritus at the University of California, San Diego. Small has served in various editorial capacities for the American Mathematical Society and has been a Program Director at the National Science Foundation (US).
Randell Stephenson
Council Member
André van Steirteghem
Council Member
André Van Steirteghem (Editor-in-Chief, Human Reproduction) is Emeritus Professor of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB; Brussels Free University) and Honorary Consultant of the Centre for Reproductive Medicine of the Universitair Ziekenhuis Brussel. He is a medical graduate of the VUB where he also trained in paediatrics and clinical pathology.
Steve Yentis
Council Member
Steve Yentis has been a Consultant Obstetric Anaesthetist at the Chelsea & Westminster Hospital, London, since 1995, and an Editor of Anaesthesia since 1999. He also served on the Editorial Board of the International Journal of Obstetric Anesthesia from 1999–2007.
Richard Green
Ombudsman
Richard Green holds a medical degree from Johns Hopkins University and a law degree from Yale University. He was Professor of Psychiatry at the University of California, Los Angeles and the State University of New York at Stony Brook. He is a professor in the Department of Psychological Medicine at Imperial College. Richard Green was Senior Research Fellow, Institute of Criminology, and Lecturer, Faculty of Law, Cambridge. He was a Fulbright Scholar at Kings College and Cambridge University.
Cynthia Clerk
Website Manager
Linda Gough
Administrator
Natalie Ridgeway
COPE Operations Manager
Jeannie Wurz
Newsletter Editor
Jeannie Wurz is an American writer and editor who lives in the capital of Switzerland. A native of the Chicago area, she earned a degree in English/Writing from the Pennsylvania State University in 1983. Jeannie worked in the USA for a weekly news magazine, for hospitals, publishing companies, and an advertising agency before moving to Bern in 1992. Since 1995, she has worked free-lance as an editor of medical manuscripts.