Teresa Woodruff Hopes to Take Endocrinology “Beyond Borders”

teresa in the lab

The Endocrine Society’s oldest peer-reviewed journal will get a new editor-in-chief in January. Woodruff hopes to make Endocrinology a vital resource for all science “within and beyond the borders of endocrinology.”

Endocrine Society past-president Teresa Woodruff, PhD, of Northwestern University in Chicago, has had quite the past couple of months.

First, she was named dean of The Graduate School and associate provost for graduate education at Northwestern, which was effective September 1. Then, she was named editor-in-chief of the Endocrine Society’s journal Endocrinology, beginning January 1.

Endocrinology is the flagship for our discipline of endocrinology,” Woodruff says. “It’s where science that is relevant to the biological strategies of communication between organs and the hormones that do this work are published.  The pages of Endocrinology are the Rosetta Stone of health and disease providing the clues that can be translated from the language of the bench to the terminology of diagnosis and treatment. ”

In her new role as dean of The Graduate School (TGS), Woodruff notes that as an alumna of TGS she has a unique perspective of student life at Northwestern and hopes that she serves as a template for student success.  ‘My career should be looked upon as a roadmap for the kind of success you can have as a graduate of Northwestern – anything is possible.’

The pages of Endocrinology are the Rosetta Stone of health and disease providing the clues that can be translated from the language of the bench to the terminology of diagnosis and treatment.

As editor-in-chief of Endocrinology Woodruff succeeds Andrea Gore, PhD, professor of pharmacology and toxicology at the University of Texas in Austin, and Stephen Hammes, PhD, MD, professor of medicine at the University of Rochester, who have led Endocrinology through a merger and enriched many areas of science including endocrine disrupting hormones, sex inclusion policies and methods to enrich the reproducibility of endocrine science.

“I am delighted that Dr. Woodruff has agreed to take the helm of the ES’s flagship basic science journal, Endocrinology,” says Gore. “As a basic and translational researcher, and a real visionary, Dr. Woodruff is the perfect person to lead the journal in its second century of publication.”

“I have known Teresa Woodruff for many years and I think that she is an outstanding choice the next editor-in-chief of Endocrinology,” Hammes says. “She is a wonderful person and a terrific scientist who has the uncanny ability to both sweat the details but also appreciate the big picture, which is exactly what you want in an editor.”

“I really applaud what the current editors have done,” Woodruff says. “Endocrinology will use the solid foundation that Andrea Gore and Stephen Hammes have built in order to grow further. I will focus on big impact and breadth of readership. If we do those two things, we can become an indispensable publication vehicle as well as resource for all of science, within and beyond the borders of endocrinology.  Those are the pillars upon which we will build our science house.”

In moving forward, Woodruff lays out her plan to bring impact factors up, as well as giving authors all the support they need, pointing to things that can be done, as well as things the Society is already doing. “I think to increase the journal’s reputation, visibility, and rate of submission,” she says, “we have to move our impact factors up. Impact factors can be criticized, but I think there’s a threshold that needs to be met in order for the broader world to understand how valuable endocrine science is. And part of this is mechanistic. It’s not that our science is below the threshold, it’s the way our journal articles are externally counted, divided and metric’d that’s below the threshold. Part of my goal, which is shared by the associate editors and Endocrine Society staff, is to make sure we have the recognition that is already deserved by the papers that are within the journal. We’re going to make sure we highlight scientific discovery as we move forward.”

If we do those two things, we can become an indispensable publication vehicle as well as resource for all of science, within and beyond the borders of endocrinology.  Those are the pillars upon which we will build our science house.

In terms of vision, Woodruff says she wants to make sure that the Endocrine Society keeps pace with the way publication works mechanistically, “which is part of our discussion about impact factors,” she says. “While we have our eye on the metric ball, we also want to make sure our authors are well served with a fair and rapid peer review system.  And, I am going to ask the community to join with me to make certain our science is linked to the wider community through commentaries and other vehicles that I’ll be rolling out in January. Some of the new tools at my disposal are electronic but most are by partnering with Endocrine Society members.  We are the best communicators of complicated signaling pathways and negative and forward feedback systems – and I want to amplify those voices in connecting the science dots!”

It is the definitive reference for everything that we know about fundamental endocrinology from its origins to the present.

First published in 1917, Endocrinology is the Endocrine Society’s oldest journal, first edited by R.G. Hoskins, PhD. “Historically, first and foremost,” Woodruff says. “It led to all of the other journals of the Society, from JCEM to Molecular Endocrinology to Endocrine Reviews and indeed to all of our discipline ‘competing’ journals.  It is the definitive reference for everything that we know about fundamental endocrinology from its origins to the present.”

“I still see Endocrinology similar to the vision of the first editor-in-chief of Endocrinology, Hoskins, in 1917,” she says. “I want this journal to represent the width and the depth of the field of Endocrinology as it emerges.” To enable this, Woodruff has invited 12 outstanding associate editors who “share with me a vision for Endocrinology that represents our collective future.”

I want this journal to represent the width and the depth of the field of Endocrinology as it emerges.

Woodruff served as president of the Endocrine Society from 2013 to 2014 and is the Thomas J. Watkins professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology and director of the Women’s Health Research Institute at Northwestern. She’s a pioneer in ovarian biology, and coined the word “oncofertility” to describe the merging of oncology and fertility. She was awarded the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science Mentoring from President Obama in an oval office ceremony. She holds 10 U.S. Patents. In 2013, she was named to Time magazine’s ‘Most Influential Persons’ list.

 

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