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OPal logo: a red-to-blue rainbow shaded simple rendering of a regular echinoid with lines of paired white dots representing the ambulacra and a central white circle representing the periproct. The OPal echinoid forms the "O" of the journal's abbreviation, "OPal", with the "Pal" written in light blue.

Organisation

Overview

Open Palaeontology’s organisational structure comprises a Steering Committee, responsible for managing the long-term stability and strategic direction of OPal, and three operational teams, responsible for the day-to-day running of the OPal. The teams are:

  • Editorial
  • Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion
  • Communications

In addition to each team meeting independently, the EDI Team will have representation on each of the other teams to ensure best-practice is followed across the journal. 

Steering Committee

The Steering Committee has overall responsibility for managing the development and growth of Open Palaeontology. Over time, the role of the Steering Committee is expected to evolve towards maintaining the long-term stability of the journal alongside pushing forward editorial innovations. To ensure efficient working practices, the Steering Committee will not exceed six people at any one time. Current members of the Steering Committee, in alphabetical order by last name, are:

Dr Harriet B. Drage

Harrie (she/her) has a PhD in Environmental Research and Palaeobiology from the University of Oxford (UK) and is currently a palaeobiologist at the University of Lausanne (Switzerland). She is motivated by trying to reconstruct the evolutionary patterns, ecologies, and behaviours of arthropods from >400 million years ago to visualise them as living animals. Harrie previously worked in education publishing, and she has a passion for improving the transparency and inclusivity of academia, leading to her co-founding Open Palaeontology.

Dr Harriet B Drage of the Open Palaeontology Steering Committee

Dr Joseph N. Keating

Joseph is a Lecturer in Biological Sciences at the University of Bristol. He completed an undergraduate degree in Geology with Palaeobiology at the University of Leicester and a PhD at the University of Bristol. Joseph's research explores the transition from jawless to jawed vertebrates, modeling anatomical trait evolution, and methods for reconstructing evolutionary trees with different types of data.

Dr Joseph Keating of the Open Palaeontology Steering Committee

Dr Morten Lunde Nielsen

Morten graduated in geology from the University of Copenhagen (Denmark) before earning a PhD at the University of Bristol’s Palaeobiology Research Group (UK). He currently works outside academia, in the Danish government, but remains active in research in his spare time. His work focuses on reconstructing early Cambrian ecosystems and their dynamics through taphonomic and palaeoecological studies of exceptionally preserved fossils from the Burgess Shale-type Sirius Passet deposit in North Greenland.

Dr Morten Lunde Nielsen of the Open Palaeontology Steering Group

Dr Farid Saleh

Farid obtained his PhD from the Laboratoire de Géologie de Lyon (France) in 2020 before completing a postdoc at Yunnan University (China) and another one at the University of Lausanne (Switzerland). He is currently an SNF Research Fellow at the University of Lausanne, where he works with his group on fossil preservation during the Early Paleozoic. Farid’s research focuses on constraining how various parameters and processes influenced exceptional fossil preservation using sedimentary, mineralogical, geochemical, and statistical approaches.

Dr Farid Saleh of the Open Palaeontology Steering Group

Dr Thomas W. Wong Hearing

Thomas (he/him) is a palaeoclimate scientist at the University of Leicester (UK). Through his work, Thomas tries to shed new light on Earth's ancient climates and environments by combining geological and palaeontological data with computational model simulations. Thomas is motivated by a desire to see science done in ways that are equitable, ethical, and inclusive, and it is this desire that led to his co-founding Open Palaeontology.

Dr Thomas W. Wong Hearing of the Open Palaeontology Steering Committee

Editorial Team

The Editorial Team is responsible for the day-to-day handling of manuscripts, including editorial decision-making and managing peer review processes, and for developing journal editorial policies. The Editorial Team will elect one of their members to be the Editor-in-Chief who will also sit on the Steering Committee. Other members of the Editorial Team will take on roles of Handling Editors who will handle manuscript submissions. 

Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) Team

The EDI Team is responsible for reviewing processes across Open Palaeontology to ensure that the journal keeps pace with developing best practices. The EDI Team will meet as a separate unit, but will also have representation on each of the other teams (including the Steering Committee) to ensure they have oversight of and input into all current and upcoming developments across the journal.  

Communication Team

The Comms Team is responsible for ensuring visibility of Open Palaeontology and the work published therein. Particularly in the early stages, the Comms Team will work to promote the journal to the palaeontological community online and at conferences. The Comms Team will work closely with each of the other teams to develop a house style across the journal’s publication and web presence.