SPARC has announced that Dr. Erin McKiernan has joined SPARC as its new Community Manager for the Open Funders Research Group (ORFG). In her new role, Erin will work with existing and prospective ORFG members to enumerate and develop the tools and resources needed to launch, oversee, and expand open policies.
The ORFG is a partnership of leading philanthropic organizations committed to the open sharing of research outputs. It engages a range of stakeholders to create policies that promote greater dissemination, transparency, replicability and reuse of research. As the ORFG’s inaugural Community Manager, Erin will engage with the group’s members and other philanthropies interested in exploring open policies to expand upon the ORFG’s innovative ‘community of practice’ approach to advancing open principles.
Erin is a neuroscientist who has been a professor in the Department of Physics, Biomedical Physics In her career, Erin has demonstrated a deep commitment to open scholarship. She has been active in SPARC’s OpenCon community and has been contributing to the advancement of open principles for years, speaking at more than 70 conferences across five continents. Erin publishes her research in open access journals only and encourages other scientists to adopt open practices. She hopes her background will help expand policies with funders, lower the barriers to open and enable her to work effectively with grantees to convey the importance of working in open.
Erin is based in Mexico City.
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