Thanks, Naomi!

Over the past 15 months or so, I’ve been privileged to work closely with Naomi Penfold to advance preprinting in the life science. Now, as she heads to eLife as their Community Manager, I wanted to thank her for some of the incredible work she’s done at ASAPbio.

• Together with Jamie Kirkham and Fiona Murphy, Naomi assembled a directory of preprint servers relevant to the life sciences. We’ll be working to make a more easily-browsable version shortly.
• With colleagues at EMBL-EBI and Ithaka S+R, she organized a workshop #bioPreprints2020 that brought the funders, server leads, and infrastructure providers together to discuss building trust in preprints 
• She collaborated with the ScholCommLab to conduct research on preprint metadata
• With support from her participation in the Community Engagement Fellows program, she’s developed our ambassador program
• Behind the scenes, she’s developed a privacy policy and Code of Conduct for the organization 
• She’s moderated events, including a panel and dinner at FORCE11
• She’s given many talks to encourage adoption and innovation among preprints, keynoting INCF, speaking at the West African Centre for Cell Biology of Infectious Pathogens, and developing a prototype to increase attention to “hidden preprints.”

I’m looking forward to continuing to work with Naomi in her new role!

– Jessica Polka