Experiments in Community Engagement at the Society Associations

Duration: 1 hr 1 min
Publication Date: May 2025

About the session

This session aims to showcase society publishers' community engagement projects that have achieved real results. It will feature case studies from ASCB, ASM, FASEB, and AGU, highlighting their innovative approaches. The ASCB initiative provides guaranteed peer review for members, increasing submissions. ASM focuses on community-building through a sustainable open-access publishing model. FASEB has established an Early Career Researcher editorial board to enhance diversity and inclusion, expanding their team to over 100 members. AGU's Thriving Earth Exchange program and the Community Science Exchange platform support local communities by connecting them with researchers to address community priorities and sharing project reports and peer-reviewed articles. Speakers will engage attendees in dialogue to help them develop their community engagement proposals.

Collection

Annual Meeting (2025)

Speakers

Director of Publications, American Society for Cell Biology

Yurong Fei-Bloom is the Director of Publications for the American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB). In this position, she oversees all aspects of ASCB's self-publishing program and is focused on driving strategic growth in editorial development, subscription sales, and open-access initiatives. Yurong has extensive experience in STEM publishing, having worked with both nonprofit organizations and major publishing companies. Before her role at ASCB, she held various positions at Springer Nature and Taylor & Francis Group. Yurong earned her Ph.D. in Biomedical Science from the University of Connecticut Health Center.
Chief Publishing, Open Science, & Research Integrity Officer, Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology

Darla is the central business, operational, and thought leader for open science, research integrity, and publications. Recently, she led a science-first, scientist-centered response to public access plans across all FASEB member societies. Darla served in leadership positions at John Wiley & Sons and at the American Chemical Society as the first Head of Open Access. She is a frequent speaker at industry meetings and serves on multiple boards and committees. She holds a PhD in biological chemistry from Duke University and scholarly information works under her remit have earned 11 industry awards.
Vice President, Publications, American Geophysical UnionVice President, Publications, American Geophysical Union

Matt Giampoala serves as the Vice President for Publications for the American Geophysical Union (AGU). He’s responsible for overseeing AGU’s publications, including 21 journals and its books program. Matt has extensive experience as a publisher of journals and books across the spectrum of STM publishing and has led efforts in expanding access and engagement through open science and reproducibility initiatives. He is an advocate for promoting diversity and mentorship in scholarly publishing. Before arriving at AGU, he served in roles at Springer, Wiley, and Elsevier. Matt has a Ph.D. in Neuroscience from the Perlman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.
Publishing Operations Director, American Society for Microbiology

David Haber is the Director of Publishing Operations at the American Society for Microbiology, which publishes 15 peer-reviewed journals from food microbiology to genomics and the microbiome. He collaborates with a team responsible for all content and metadata operations from submission into the peer review system, through article flow during production, and to eventual publication and distribution online. For the past twenty years, he has held a wide range of positions in the STM ecosystem, from copyediting manuscripts to typesetting articles, from digital conversion modeling to solution architecture for publishing support systems, from old-school, print workflow management to speedy OA publication models.