Dr Jane Alfred
Dr Jane Alfred is a professional editor, who has worked in STEM publishing since 1999. She is the Director and Co-founder of Catalyst Editorial, an independent editorial consultancy company that provides training on research integrity, publication ethics and peer review to the biological research community, as well as editorial services to STEM publishers and academic authors.
Before founding Catalyst Editorial in 2015, Jane was Deputy Editor of PLOS Biology and previous to that was the Executive Editor of the journal Development for several years. Prior to Development, Jane was Editor of Nature Reviews Genetics, which she launched with editorial colleagues in 2000.
As a Managing Journal Editor, Jane has overseen publishing ethics issues, allegations of research misconduct, editorial policy breaches, authorship disputes and author complaints, and has developed editorial policies and standards, including on publishing ethics, research reporting standards and practices, and peer review.
As a research integrity trainer, Jane provides discussion-based training workshops to research institute leaders and early career researchers on research integrity, research culture and research practice; on publication ethics; and on the ethics and performance of peer review.
For much of her editorial career, Jane has been a member of COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics) and since 2015, she has been an external adviser to UKRIO.
Jane’s research background is in developmental genetics, and she obtained her PhD at the MRC Human Genetics Unit, Edinburgh, UK.