Meet Prof. Jana Jass, Co-Editor-in-Chief of FEMS Microbes (3 of 3)

24-09-20 cameronw1986

Here we introduce the final of our new Editors-in-Chief for FEMS Microbes: Prof. Jana Jass; as she talks to us about her career and her vision for our new open access journal. Previously, we talked to Co-Editor-in-Chief Kathleen Scott.

Prof. Jana Jass, Örebro University (Sweden)
  • Institution: School of Science and Technology, Örebro University, Örebro, Sweden.
  • ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7957-0310
  • Research Interests: Probiotic mechanisms of lactic acid bacteria; Biofilms, host-microbe interaction; Nanotechnology; Antibiotic and multi-drug resistance; Stress response to environmental factors.

 

What encouraged you to pursue a career in the field of microbiology?

My interest started during my undergraduate years, where a fascination with electron microscopy brought to life this normally invisible world of microbes. Being a visual person, I was excited to see this minute yet immensely impactful world, seeing bacteria, algae and bacteriophage close up. My interest was maintained by meeting and working with inspiring microbiologists on biofilms and introduced me to ideas on multidisciplinary research. Today, it is clear that we must combine the different disciplines to drive innovative research but back then it was a rather new idea.”

What do you think are the challenges being faced by researchers today, and in particular by Early Career Scientists? 

There are many new challenges today for young researchers. A major one, being the information overload where very large amount of information is available and the speed at which things occur in science can be daunting. Young researchers can be overwhelmed with this and need to learn early how to navigate through relevant and valid information. Misinformation and false information have always been around but the rate at which it spreads now is faster, so it can have greater impact on individual research. This has contributed to developing new ways of doing research – in an open forum – which is driven by ECR.”

How would you describe FEMS Microbes in your own words?

FEMS Microbes is a fully open-access journal that covers “all that is microbiology”, with a transparent peer-review and publishing policy. It aims to be flexible in the type of papers, including full-length research reports and reviews as well as short commentaries and opinion documents. FEMS Microbes seeks to be the microbiology community journal.”

What makes FEMS Microbes unique for the community, and why should scientists submit their manuscripts?

FEMS Microbes’ is a complement to the FEMS journal portfolio in that it publishes full length papers on a broad range of microbiology topics in an open access and transparent format. The unique aspect is that it aims to work closely with FEMS and the wider microbiology community to progressively meet their publishing needs. Furthermore, surplus funds from publishing are returned to the research community to help support young researchers and encourage them to engage in publishing activities.”

How do you see the future of FEMS Microbes in 5, 10, 20 years, and what would you consider a success for it?

As an open-access journal, I see that it will be a major venue for rapidly publishing reliable science data.  It will continually be responsive to the community of microbiologists and maintain a current format for publishing quality research.  Success would be when FEMS Microbes is the first choice of journals to be publishing your novel data in.”

FEMS Microbes – Open science towards a sustainable world

FEMS Microbes is our new community journal for sharing research findings. In particular, it is a venue for early career scientists to read, publish, and contribute. It includes research articles, commentaries, reviews, as well as methodological advancements that are of general interest to a wide audience. All microbes, including bacteria, archaea, fungi, protists, parasites, and viruses are covered. The journal is fully gold open access and all articles are free to read.

We welcome spontaneous submission of manuscripts. More information on the how to submit is available on this page.

See the first issue of FEMS Microbes including the first published editorial and first articles.

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