Introducing the new Chair of the Publications Standing Committee

Greetings to all ASM members,

I am thrilled to introduce myself as the new Chair of the ASM Publications Standing Committee. My name is John Atack, and I am based at the Institute for Biomedicine and Glycomics at Griffith University on the Gold Coast.

I would like to thank the outgoing Chair, İpek Kurtböke, for leaving Microbiology Australia in such good shape. İpek’s work over many years has made Microbiology Australia a highly informative and widely read publication, and includes achieving our first ever impact factor. I know I have big shoes to fill, but hopefully over the coming years, we can continue to make Microbiology Australia a pivotal part of our active society.

I am really looking forward to working with Editor-in-Chief Ian Macreadie and his team. Ian has been super helpful (and patient!) with me as I find my feet and feel out the role.

It really is an honour and privilege to be selected as the Publications Standing Committee Chair, and to have the support of our President Mark Schembri, the ASM Executive and all the members of the national council, and, frankly, I am humbled to be selected. I served for many years on the ASM Queensland branch, latterly as the Chair, so I have a very good idea of the dynamics and expectations involved in the role of Chair of the Publications Standing committee, so I hope to not disappoint.

One of my first acts as Chair is overseeing our move to online-only publication. This is a dramatic shift, but one that I hope is recognised as a necessary change, and one that brings us into line with many other society journals. Hopefully, this can increase our readership, make us more accessible and really free us from some of the constraints of having to format for print. One of my goals for Microbiology Australia is to increase contributions from early- and mid-career researchers in the society and showcase their great work across all areas of the discipline. I am confident that the shift to online only will help drive this by increasing visibility and accessibility both within and beyond our membership.

I’m always happy to hear suggestions from you on ways to improve our journal. If anyone would like to get in touch, please drop me a line with any ideas regarding future issues, special features or indeed anything else you think will be beneficial to our community.

I look forward to working to make our flagship publication even better!

with best wishes

John Atack

Chair of the ASM Publications Standing Committee