Jocalyn Clark
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Departments Member Profile: Jocalyn Clark Stacy Christiansen believes PLOS has been most influential in articles about ghostwriting, the role of She may have what she calls a “traditional the food industry in global health, and academic health-sciences background”, but access to clean water as a basic human Jocalyn Clark has anything but a tra- right. Jocalyn wrote one of the first pieces ditional health-sciences job. She is the published in a medical journal that exam- senior magazine editor for PLOS Medicine, ined the use of rape as a tool of war. She a peer-reviewed, weekly, open-access medi- believes that PLOS Medicine is uniquely cal journal. situated to provide a forum for critical Jocalyn started her career as an under- issues in global health both because of its graduate biochemistry major, completed open-access license and because it does both a master’s degree and a doctorate in not take money from the pharmaceuti- public health, and landed a fellowship with cal industry for advertising. Jocalyn notes the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. that her job requires travel, so she gets to Her interests included research on the use meet “amazing, dedicated people who are of health services by women who had addressing health inequities”. been sexually assaulted and gender-equity When asked about the open-access and public-health issues. In addition, she model for a medical journal, Jocalyn Jocalyn Clark researched, wrote, and edited a fair amount explains that open access allows the world’s on peer review, and this led her to attend scientific and medical research to be a the International Congress on Peer Review public resource. She notes two important In addition to her work at PLOS Medicine and Biomedical Publication in 2001. There issues: removal of barriers to accessing the and as a professor of medicine at the she met Richard Smith, editor of BMJ, who literature and author retention of copy- University of Toronto, Jocalyn stays active encouraged her to apply for a fellowship at right. She notes that although wealthier with yoga, Pilates, and running (including BMJ. Jocalyn said that she “really enjoyed countries do not see barriers to content a few marathons). She is an avid sports fan the 1-year BMJ fellowship” and was later access (“many of us in wealthy countries and could see herself as a yoga and Pilates hired full-time as an assistant editor. can use our library’s institutional subscrip- trainer if she were not in biomedical pub- In 2008, Jocalyn moved back to tions to read journals”), this is not the case lication. Canada, when she joined PLOS Medicine. for most people, especially in develop- But that is where she wants to be: At In her current role, Jocalyn oversees the ing countries. She says that authors tend PLOS Medicine, Jocalyn is able to pursue magazine (front) portion of the journal, not to understand the copyright issues her passions in global and public health. including commissioning pieces and edit- involved in publishing when they trans- “I want to travel and experience other cul- ing content for weekly publication. She fer copyright to publishers who then sell tures, especially regarding public health.” access to their content, and that research She feels that her current position allows funded by public dollars—and peer review her to make contributions in public health, STACY CHRISTIANSEN is director of manu- conducted by academics—should be free and this is the most important work that script editing at JAMA, Chicago, Illinois. and in the public domain. she has done in her career. Science Editor • January – March 2013 • Vol 36 • No 1 • 31.