Staff Editors
Senior Editorial Leadership
Emily Chenette
Editor-in-Chief
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Emily studied biochemistry at Columbia University as an undergraduate, and went on to earn her PhD in genetics and molecular biology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She then completed postdoctoral research at Duke University, where she analysed gene expression signatures in lung cancer. Emily has always loved scientific writing and policy and left the bench to pursue an editorial career in 2007. Before joining PLOS ONE in 2018, she held editorial positions at Nature Cell Biology and The FEBS Journal. She is excited to support PLOS ONE’s commitment to community and open science.
George VousdenDeputy Editor-in-Chief |
George joined PLOS ONE in 2017 following his PhD and subsequent post-doctoral research at the University of Cambridge. He has a background in psychology and neuroscience, specialising in the use of rodents to better understand human disease. George helps to oversee the PLOS ONE editorial team, working alongside other teams at PLOS to ensure the journal publishes high-quality, rigorously reviewed, and robust research. He led the development of PLOS’ policy on Inclusivity in Global Research.
Behavioral and Social Sciences, Neuroscience, Mental Health
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Laura joined PLOS in 2019, after completing her PhD at the University of Exeter focusing on endonucleolytic cleavage in RNA metabolism and transcriptional termination. She has a background in molecular biology and translational neuroscience. Laura first worked in the Editorial Board Services team at PLOS, leading recruitment of our Editorial Board Members, and in 2024 joined the PLOS ONE Editorial team
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Vanessa earned an undergraduate degree in Neuroscience from the University of Minnesota. They spent some time studying what happens in bird brains when they learn to sing, then left the Midwest to pursue a PhD in Neuroscience from the University of California, Berkeley. Their research focused on the encoding of complex sounds in auditory cortex and the ways that modulating attention can change the sensory code. They worked as a freelance science writer and editor as a graduate student, and came to PLOS in 2017 excited to contribute to open scientific communication.
Avanti DeySenior Editor
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Avanti received her undergraduate degree in Psychology from Queen’s University in Canada before heading to the U.S. to obtain a PhD in Psychological and Brain Sciences in 2016 from Washington University in St Louis. Her graduate research examined the interaction between cognitive abilities during speech perception in aging, with a focus on executive function and language. She went on to complete a year of postdoctoral training in behavioural economics and decision-making at Columbia University, before returning to the field of cognitive aging to examine issues of age-related neural compensation at the Center for Vital Longevity at University of Texas at Dallas as a postdoctoral research scientist. Avanti has also worked as an Associate Editor with The POSTDOCket, the official newsletter of the National Postdoctoral Association, and joined PLOS ONE in 2020.
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Annesha received her undergraduate degree in Biotechnology from VIT University, Vellore, India. Following this, she completed a Masters in Neuroscience in 2013 from King’s College London and a PhD in Neuroscience (cum laude) in 2017 from the University of Cagliari, Italy in the field of addiction neuroscience using both clinical and animal-based approaches. She then went on to pursue her postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Aberdeen in international projects aimed at enhancing reproducibility in neuroscience and dementia research as well as investigating dementia risk factors such as sex, diet, and pollution. Her passion for open science, reproducibility and previous editorial experience during the course of her research career led her to join PLOS ONE in 2024.
Life Sciences
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Patrick received his undergraduate degree in Natural Sciences from the University of Cambridge, specializing in genetics. He then completed a DPhil at the University of Oxford on experimental microbial evolution, and conduced postdoctoral research on Drosophila ageing and response to environmental temperature. He started his editorial career in 2005 at Nature Reviews Genetics and Nature Reviews Cancer, before moving to Nature in 2008 to handle research manuscripts in ecology and evolution, and then becoming the launch chief editor of Nature Ecology & Evolution in 2016. He joined the PLOS ONE team in 2024.
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Miquel received his BsC in Biology from the University of Barcelona. In 2012 he completed a PhD in Ecology at the Autonomous University of Barcelona. His topic of research was the ecology of avian invasions, particularly what makes a species a successful invader and how this knowledge can be used to prevent the impacts of the invaders. He then moved to the University of Adelaide for a postdoctoral position examining the pet trade as a pathway of introduction of invasive bird species. In 2017 he became an Assistant Professor at Shinshu University researching international exotic bird trade. Miquel has a wide range of interests in life sciences including biodiversity conservation, global change ecology, natural history, evolutionary biology, and paleontology. He joined PLOS ONE in June 2018.
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Following her undergraduate studies in Pharmaceutical Administration, Jianhong obtained a Masters in Bioinformatics from China Pharmaceutical University and a PhD in Systems Biology at Soochow University spending two years in Indiana University for her PhD training. Her doctoral research initially focused on protein structure/function predictions, and later changed into protein disorder/function predictions. She then worked as a postdoc at iHuman institute in ShanghaiTech University investigating the functions of intrinsically disordered regions in signaling and regulatory proteins. She joined PLOS ONE in July 2019.
Physical Sciences and Engineering
Carla PegoraroDivision Editor
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Carla grew up in Pisa, where she obtained BEng and MEng degrees in Biomedical Engineering working on molecularly imprinted membranes for the recognition of specific biomolecules. She then earned a doctorate from the University of Sheffield, UK, with a project focused on transdermal needle free drug delivery under the supervision of professors Sheila MacNeil and Giuseppe Battaglia. During her PhD and research fellowship working on polymersome vaccine delivery, she became intrigued by the other side of scientific research: communication and publishing. This led her to the Royal Society of Chemistry in Cambridge, UK. There she worked for 4 years as a Publishing Editor on a variety of journals covering all aspects of chemistry. She was also strongly involved in cover commissioning and writing for Chemistry World. She joined PLOS ONE in November 2016.
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Hugh received his undergraduate degree in Natural Sciences (MSci) from the University of Cambridge, UK, with a Master’s research project in catalytic amine-borane dehydrocoupling. He undertook graduate research in thiazyl synthesis, electron paramagnetic resonance and X-ray crystallography at the University of Windsor, Ontario, before deciding on a career in scientific publishing. Hugh joined the Royal Society of Chemistry as an editor for ChemComm, subsequently working on Chemical Science, Chemical Society Reviews and RSC Advances. He then moved into the development of a wide range of specialist chemistry and materials science journals, and newly launched engineering journals Reaction Chemistry & Engineering and MSDE. His strong interest in accessibility and equity in scientific communication led him to open access publishing at PLOS, and he joined the PLOS ONE team in 2021.
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Joanna received her BSc(Hons) in Physical Geography and MSc in Quaternary Science from Royal Holloway, University of London (RHUL) where she developed a particular interest in palaeoclimatology and human-environment interactions. Her PhD focused on lacustrine oxygen isotope records as tracers of past climate change in NW Europe across the Holocene based at UCL and RHUL. This led to a postdoctoral research position at the University of Nottingham that integrated palaeolimnology and palaeoecology with the ancient Maya archaeology record in Belize. She has a keen interest in science communication and has been involved in a variety of projects encouraging the public to engage with geography and natural history more broadly. She joined the PLOS ONE team in 2024.
Public Health and Medicine
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James studied Biology as an undergraduate at the University of Bath and received his PhD from the University of Cambridge for a project investigating the signaling mechanisms of growth hormone. After completing postdoctoral research in the Department of Cardiology at King’s College London, he moved from the bench into scientific publishing and worked at Portland Press and then at Springer Nature as an Editor in the BMC Series handling a portfolio of medical journals. Before joining PLOS ONE in July 2021, James was the Managing Editor of the British Journal of Cancer.
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Marianne studied Biological Sciences at the university of Oxford and subsequently completed a Wellcome Trust-funded doctoral training programme in Infection, Immunology and Translational Medicine. Her research focused on characterisation of the polysaccharide capsule in Neisseria meningitidis, a leading cause of bacterial meningitis. After her PhD, Marianne spent some time working as a medical writer, supporting the development of publications in rare genetic disorders. She developed a particular interest in Open Access in the publication of clinical research, which led her to join PLOS ONE in August 2020.
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Steve received an undergraduate degree in Communication Studies from Nottingham Trent University and a master’s degree in Intelligent Systems from the University of Nottingham. He stayed at Nottingham to pursue a PhD in Psychology, using cognitive modelling to examine language development. After graduating, Steve took a lecturing position at the University of Derby and then moved to the US to become an Assistant Professor at Illinois State University. His research focused on the development of scientific reasoning. He then worked as a freelance copyeditor before joining PLOS ONE in 2022.
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Jenny obtained her PhD in Medical Studies, with a focus potential novel interventions in two toxicological models of Parkinson’s disease through the University of Plymouth, with a large portion of her research undertaken at Florida International University. Following her PhD, Jenny worked at the University of Bath investigating imprinted genes and lncRNAs in breast and colon cancer. She joins the PLOS ONE team in August 2023 with over two years’ experience in scientific publishing at Frontiers.
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Johanna studied Biomedical Engineering (BSc) and Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine (MSc) at the University of Applied Sciences Technikum in Vienna, Austria, followed by a Wellcome Trust funded PHD at King’s College London in Stem Cells and Regenerative Medicine, where she developed a gene therapy for the rare childhood cancer rhabdomyosarcoma. She then stayed at King’s for a post-doc and fellowship investigating neuromuscular diseases. During this time, Johanna got interested in the publishing world, and this led to her joining PLOS ONE in August 2023.
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Emma received an integrated MBiol undergraduate degree in Pharmacology from the University of Leeds. Following this, she continued her studies at the University of Leeds and completed a PhD in bioengineering supported by Defence Science and Technology Laboratories. Her doctoral research focused on the development of protein switch biosensors with rapid diagnostic and disease monitoring capabilities. During this time Emma developed an interest in scientific publishing, and after completing a short post-doctoral research project continuing her work on diagnostic biosensors, she joined PLOS ONE in February 2024.