In this episode of SSP’s Early Career Development Podcast, hosts Meredith Adinolfi (Cell Press) and Sara Grimme (Digital Science) speak to Heather Staines, the Director of Community Engagement and a Senior Consultant at Delta Think. Heather chats about her contributions to SSP over the years, from her creative Annual Meeting sessions to her multiple terms on the Board. You’ll hear her thoughts on her presidency so far, her plans for 2025, and her perspectives on the critical role of Early Career Professionals in scholarly publishing. 

Heather discusses her earlier career path that led her to scholarly publishing, starting off as an academic in military history and moving into her first role in publishing as a book acquisitions editor in this area, moving later into open access and infrastructure work, and now consulting. She describes how she jumped headfirst into SSP by leading a pre-conference, and how this first annual meeting led to her volunteer work and eventually her presidency. Delving into her personal and professional plans for 2025, she looks forward to working alongside the Board, lovingly called the “Jedi counsel.” Her other goals include working on programming for ECPs, such as an adjacent session at this year’s Annual Meeting in Baltimore- “the SSP President’s Early Career Roundtable.” 

In the second half of the interview, Heather underscores how key ECP’s are the foundation of the scholarly publishing industry, as is retention of this group. She offers advice to ECPs on networking and learning outside your specific job function, ideas for staying up to date on industry news, and knowing your value as someone at the forefront of the industry’s technological future. Her charge: “don’t be afraid to change it up, get involved, speak up, be creative.”   

Background on this podcast series

SSP’s Career Development Committee launched this podcast series in 2019 to offer advice and discussion on how early career publishing professionals can add to their skill sets, develop networks, and take advantage of new opportunities. The series presents interviews and insights from experienced professionals on how to navigate one’s career in a diverse and ever-changing landscape of scholarly communications. If you have any feedback for the hosts, creators, or for future episodes, please email info@sspnet.org