Barbara Kline Pope will retire from her position as executive director of Johns Hopkins University Press on February 1, 2027, according to an announcement from university leadership. Pope joined the university in 2017 and has guided the Press through a period of significant change in academic publishing, marked by industry consolidation, reduced higher education budgets, and the growing influence of artificial intelligence.
During her tenure, Pope oversaw the expansion of Hopkins Press’s digital offerings and the growth of its journal program by nearly 30%. The Press, founded in 1878 as the nation’s first university press, now publishes 120 journals and manages membership for 27 scholarly and professional associations and societies. Its portfolio also includes a books division that publishes 120 new titles annually, a distribution program for 18 university presses, and Project MUSE, a widely used digital scholarship platform in the humanities and social sciences.
Under Pope’s leadership, Project MUSE advanced open‑access publishing models, including the ‘Subscribe to Open’ initiative launched in 2025 with more than 100 journals from 27 nonprofit publishers. She also facilitated the integration of the Press with BioOne, a nonprofit biological science aggregator, and supported the adoption of generative AI to improve publishing workflows. In addition, she co-founded the Wavelengths book series with Vice Provost for Research Denis Wirtz, and oversaw the forthcoming publication of Johns Hopkins: The First 150 Years, a single‑volume history of the institution.
Before joining Hopkins Press, Pope spent 34 years at the National Academies Press, serving as executive director from 1997 to 2017. She also served as president of the Association of University Presses and sat on the management board of MIT Press.
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