Council Members

Virginia Barbour

Council Title: 
Chair
Biography: 

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.
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Charlotte Haug

Council Title: 
Vice-Chair
Biography: 

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.
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Margaret Rees

Council Title: 
Co-secretary
Biography: 

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.She is also a Visiting Professor at the University of Glasgow and the Karolinska Institute and Adjunct Associate Professor at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey.
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André van Steirteghem

Council Title: 
Co-secretary
Biography: 

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.
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Chris Graf

Council Title: 
Treasurer
Biography: 

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.

Mohammad Abdollahi

Council Title: 
Council member
Biography: 

Mohammad Abdollahi acquired a PharmD in 1988 from the Tehran University of Medical Sciences (TUMS) and was then awarded a PhD in pharmacology/toxicology in 1994 from the same university; he gained a postdoc fellowship at the University of Toronto in 2001. Since 1988, Mohammad has worked as an academic at TUMS and has studied in the fields of pharmacy and medical sciences, specifically mechanistic toxicology and evidence-based medicine. Since 2003 he has acquired full professorship at TUMS.

Behrooz Astaneh

Council Title: 
Council member
Biography: 

Behrooz Astaneh is currently the Acting Editor of the Iranian Journal of Medical Sciences (IJMS). After a medical degree from Shiraz University of Medical Sciences in Iran, he started his career in medical journalism by working as the executive editor of the IJMS.
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Cynthia Carter

Council Title: 
Council member
Biography: 

Dr Cynthia Carter is a senior lecturer in the Cardiff School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies, Cardiff University. Research interests focus on children, news and citizenship, feminist media studies, and violence and the media. She is Founding Co-Editor of the journal Feminist Media Studies (Routledge) and editorial board member of numerous media, communication and feminist journals.

Mirjam J Curno

Council Title: 
Council member
Biography: 

Dr MJ Curno completed a PhD in molecular oncology at the University of Dundee in Scotland in 2006, and then moved to the University of Lausanne, Switzerland as a postdoctoral fellow to work on viral immunity. Since 2010 she is the Managing Editor of the Journal of the International AIDS Society.
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Irene Hames

Council Title: 
Council member, joint EiC Ethical Editing
Biography: 

After gaining a PhD in cell biology, Irene Hames moved into scientific publishing and has worked on scholarly journals and books for over 30 years. Following a decade as a freelance copy editor, book editor, project manager and trainer, she spent 20 years as the managing editor of a large international science journal (The Plant Journal).
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Zoë Mullan

Council Title: 
Council member
Biography: 

Zoë Mullan has been a Senior Editor at The Lancet since 2002, after joining as an Assistant Editor in 1999. She runs the Correspondence section and manages errata, among other duties.

Geraldine Pearson

Council Title: 
Council member
Biography: 

Geraldine Pearson is an associate professor at the University of Connecticut School of Medicine. Her PHD is from the University of Connecticut School of Nursing. She is the editor of Perspectives in Psychiatric Care and directs an outpatient program for juvenile justice youth. She is also the assistant training director for the Child Psychiatry Fellowship Program at UCONN.

Charon Pierson

Council Title: 
Council member
Biography: 

Charon Pierson is a geriatric nurse practitioner with a PhD in Medical Sociology and post-doctoral education in gerontology. She has recently retired from academia and clinical practice and, since 2000, has served as the Editor-in-Chief for the Journal of the American Academy of Nurse Practitioners (JAANP).
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Lars Ole Sauerberg

Council Title: 
Council member
Biography: 

Lars Ole Sauerberg, dr phil, is Professor of Literature in English at University of Southern Denmark, which he has also served in the administrative capacities of pro-vice-chancellor and dean. His research interests lie mainly in the literature and criticism of the period since 1900, and he has published monographs and articles on a wide variety of subjects, from studies of generic fiction over canonicity to intercultural literature.
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Rosemary Shinkai

Council Title: 
Council member
Biography: 

Rose Shinkai is an associate professor at the Dental School of the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul (PUCRS) in Brazil. She also is the editor-in-chief of the Revista Odonto Ciencia (Journal of Dental Science) and second treasurer of the Brazilian Association of Scientific Editors (ABEC). 

Michael Wise

Council Title: 
Council member
Biography: 

Professor Michael Wise is a bioinformaticist/computer scientist  in the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of Western Australia. His research interests are primarily in microbial informatics (ie, bioinformatics of microbial species and communities), so, together with a number of others he cofounded the journal Microbial Informatics and Experimentation—an independent title in the BioMed Central stable of publications. His first degrees were in electrical engineering and arts (sociology), followed by a PhD in computer science.

Adrian Ziderman

Council Title: 
Council member
Biography: 

Adrian Ziderman was born and educated  in the UK. He has served in universities in the UK, the US, Canada, China and Israel and was formerly Senior Economist for Human Resources at the World Bank, Washington.He is currently Sir Isaac Wolfson Professor Emeritus at Bar-Ilan University, Israel and Editor-in-Chief of the inter-disciplinary  International Journal of Manpower (Emerald).

Suzanne Morris

Council Title: 
Ombudsman
Biography: 

Suzanne Morris is Postgraduate Coordinator at the Sustainable Minerals Institute, The University of Queensland, Australia. Suzanne was formerly the Research Integrity Officer at The University of Queensland. In this role, Suzanne was responsible for managing allegations of research misconduct received by the university, policy development and provision of training to support the responsible conduct of research.
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Cynthia Clerk

Council Title: 
Website Manager
Biography: 

Cyntha has been working as COPE web manager since March 2010.

She has worked as a web manager for the past 10 years for a number of organisations including the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE), the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Employment Lawyers Association.

Linda Gough

Council Title: 
Administrator
Biography: 

Linda Gough has been working on a part time basis as the COPE administrator since 2006. She also works as a freelance copyeditor of medical and scientific journals.

Natalie Ridgeway

Council Title: 
COPE Operations Manager
Biography: 

Natalie has been working as the Operations Manager for COPE since March 2010.  Natalie has previously worked for the BMJ Publishing Group and The Lancet.