Thanks to STAT for putting me on the STATUS list

The recognition goes to a lot of folks at Science, AAAS, and beyond

This week, I had the fun experience of being named by STAT News to the STATUS list of the top 50 leaders in the life sciences.

I was surprised when they told me I was on the list and even more surprised when I saw some of the great people who were on there with me like Elisabeth Bik, Katalin Kariko, and many other titans. I was especially pleased that they recognized what we are doing at Science in research integrity. Here is the citation:

Scientific research doesn’t always get everything right the first time. In recent years, Holden Thorp, editor-in-chief of the Science family of journals, has stood out in the academic publishing world for challenging the stigma around corrections and retractions with an eye toward increasing public trust in the scientific enterprise. In 2023, Thorp’s public profile — and advocacy for changing the ways in which the field approaches concerns about data integrity — became increasingly prominent as a result of the investigation into research misconduct allegations against former Stanford president Marc Tessier-Lavigne, which included two papers he’d co-authored and published with Science. (Tessier-Lavigne later submitted corrections to Science, about which Thorp said: “We’re the ones that dropped the ball.”) Thorp also added a potentially influential new criterion for retractions at Science, allowing journal editors to move to retract papers when enough corrections or errors have been found “to cause the editors to lose confidence in it.”

A lot of people deserve credit for this recognition. Especially, Valda Vinson — our Executive Editor — who works with me on all matters related to research policies, Lauren Kmec — our Deputy Executive Editor — who implements all of those changes, Meagan Phelan — our Comms Director — who sets me up with all of the interviews and placing outside op-eds, and most of all, Lisa Chong — who runs Insights for us — and also edits all of my pieces and gets all of my words right. And of course, I couldn’t do it without the help and support of my boss Sudip Parikh and the AAAS Board. STAT said they “didn’t shy away from leaders who are controversial,” and I don’t take it for granted that that sometimes refers to me. Finally, all of the folks at Science have bought into this and driven a lot of it, and it is a privilege and extremely fun to come to work with them every day.

Our slogan is “correction is courageous,” and we know we can always do better living up to that and hope our talking about our own shortcomings will bring others along. Thanks to Elisabeth Bik, Ivan Oransky, Theo Baker, the folks at STAT and many others who have driven this movement.