Stella Hurtley (Science Publishing)
Stella Hurtley |
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Stella Hurtley obtained her first degree in Natural Sciences at Cambridge, and then went on to do a PhD in Cell Biology at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Heidelberg. After post-docs in Yale, Philadelphia and Edinburgh, Stella joined Science at the newly established Europe office in 1994. Now a Senior Editor at the journal, Stella is responsible for looking after submissions in a variety of subject areas including Cell Biology, Prion Biology and Cellular Microbiology, and is jointly responsible for the This Week in Science page and the Editor's Choice page.
The job of the professional editor requires a broad knowledge of their field, and the ability and confidence to make judgements about the quality of submissions. Science receives up to 100 submissions each working day. These are distributed amongst a team of 25 editors, all with PhDs and postdoctoral experience, mainly based in Washington DC and Cambridge, UK. It is impractical to review so many submissions in depth, so there is an external Board of Reviewing Editors who help assess which papers deserve further scrutiny. This first tier of review usually takes up to two weeks. About 80% of submissions are rejected at this stage. The remaining papers are refereed, generally by two experts in the field, a process that takes another 2-3 weeks, and editors use their comments, the comments from the Board and input from other in-house editors to make their decisions. Editors also attend scientific meetings and conferences to keep up with their fields, and commission and edit reviews and special issues.