Your editors: what do we do?

Written by Tristan Free (Senior Editor)

Being a scientific editor makes for a very rewarding career; however, while it is an incredible job, it is also often done behind closed doors, and we doubt any journal editor is a stranger to questions surrounding what their job actually entails.   

Here we introduce you to the BioTechniques Editors, and what we do. Not all the team members are mentioned here – you can meet the rest of the fabulous team on our About Page. 

Journal Team

Ebony Torrington – Managing Editor  

Ebony Torrington BioTechniques Managing Editor

Ebony manages the journal from both a topline strategic level and on the ground, taking a hands-on role in the day-to-day management of papers. From a strategic standpoint, Ebony manages the BioTechniques editorial board, ensuring that it is balanced to provide expertise across the broad range of topics that we cover. Further to this, with the expertise of the editorial board and her experience with the journal, Ebony compiles the editorial calendar for the year, planning out the essential topics to cover in our Technology News series and the key conferences for us to attend.

Always on the lookout for new, innovative ways to develop the journal, and broaden its reach, while providing the vital information required by the biotechniques readership, Ebony seeks out and secures new partnerships to increase the practicality and accessibility of the information on BioTechniques. For instance, recent partnerships with protocols.io and BioRxIV.

Ashling Cannon – Journal Development Editor

Ashling works with Ebony to manage and commission journal content for BioTechniques. This includes screening submissions to decide whether they should be rejected or sent for peer review based on a set of criteria – the most important being, does the paper fit within the journal’s scope? This decision isn’t the be-all-end-all though, if she feels that the paper is of a high standard, but better suited to another journal, like Future Science OA, she’ll recommend a transfer, if its in scope for BioTechniques she will send it for double-blind peer review.

From this point onwards, Ashling manages the publication process, including the management of double-blind peer review, assessing  the completion of revisions and delivering the final manuscript to our production team for publication.

The role involves a lot more though – Ashling stays up to date on the latest developments in the field so she can commission journal content from experts, ensuring we are always providing our readers with the most interesting and cutting-edge research. She also writes weekly news articles for the journal’s digital hub, BioTechniques.com, on new studies relating to novel techniques in life sciences that have been recently published.

Digital team

Tristan Free – Senior Editor

Tristan oversees the digital team and BioTechniques.com. This includes ensuring our content provides an equal balance of coverage across our many interest areas and involves high-quality well-respected experts, while aligning this coverage with our numerous sponsored content projects that we produce in partnership with industry leaders.

He supports this with his own expertise and that of the Board to ensure all of this content is scientifically sound, grammatically accurate, and formatted to be accessible, interesting and beautiful on-site. A vital part of the role is looking for new ways for BioTechniques.com to develop, liaising with leaders in the field and our audience to bring new content types and topics to site that deliver the highest possible value to our members.

Annie CoulsonAnnie Coulson – Digital Editor

Annie works with Tristan and Bea to produce our sponsored features, including In Focuses and Spotlights. She works with clients and our video and graphics team to create videos, infographics and podcasts, ensuring that the content is both interesting and useful for our readers.

Annie was the Editor of our sister site Infectious Diseases Hub, which merged with BioTechniques in 2022. She now oversees the microbiology content on site, ensuring that we continue to publish content relevant to our infectious disease audience. Annie is also Editor of our sister site, Neuro Central, which focuses on all things neuroscience and neurology. A jack of all trades.

Aisha Al-Janabi – Content Editor

Aisha oversees our editorial content, planning, researching and writing features about the latest advancements in different techniques and interviewing researchers to find out more about their work. She is also the host and producer of our quarterly “Editor’s Picks” podcast, bringing you the latest in life science news.

Alongside this, Aisha manages LEARN, the section of BioTechniques that is dedicated to early career researchers. She sources and works with experts to create “How to” guides on a variety of techniques, such as proteomics analysis, as well as articles sharing careers and publishing advice. She also collaborates with our LEARN mentors to create content including the STEM Tea podcast hosted by Antentor Hinton and Hello PhD, a podcast by Josh Hall.

Beatrice Bowlby – Digital Editor

Bea works alongside Tristan and Annie to produce our sponsored content projects, researching and writing infographic, video and podcast scripts, as well as interviews and articles. From topics like spatial omics technologies to cell-line development, it is her goal to provide our members with quality resources for their research endeavors.

Bea also handles our Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook accounts, creating engaging and entertaining content in order to facilitate widespread coverage of what’s happening on BioTechniques.com and in the life science community. Additionally, she and Aisha sit at the BioTechniques.com news desk, where they write about the latest developments in a wide range of research topics. Our resident neuroscientist, Bea is always quick to cover all things neuro, working with experts in the field to deliver insightful editorial pieces, such as the Alzheimer’s fabrication controversy Ask the Experts last year.