January 1^st NSGC welcomed Jehannine (J9) Austin PhD, FCAHS, CGC, onboard as the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Genetic Counseling (JoGC). We want to thank Christina Palmer for her dedication, time, and hard work as Editor-in-Chief on the Journal of Genetic Counseling. The journal is published by NSGC and serves as an outstanding resource on genetic counseling research. NSGC will host a webinar on February 29^th at 10am PT/12pm CT/1pm ET on the upcoming changes to the Journal of Genetic Counseling. I recently chatted with J9 about their vision for the JoGC.

CAC: What do you want to focus on with the JOGC?

JA: The JoGC has always been special to me – although there are many journals that publish genetic counseling research, JoGC is the only one in the world that focuses exclusively on this topic – so it feels like a huge privilege and responsibility to me to take on the role of Editor-in-Chief. I want to do a couple of things in this role – first, I want to build capacity for designing, conducting and publishing rigorous research within the international genetic counseling community, and second, I want to develop and consolidate the recognition of genetic counseling as a rigorous area of academic study within the broader medical and research communities around the world. I am keen on the idea of building a community of support within our profession to move towards these goals…. I hope that as things unfold, you will see that come to life.

CAC: Can you describe how the JoGC Editorial Board will support justice, equity, diversity and inclusion?

JA: The new editorial board (you’ll see a lot of new faces!) has been constructed with a view to increasing diversity along a variety of axes – including race, geography, career stage, specialty area, etc. If you want to learn more about the new editorial board, take a look at the website, we have pictures and positionality statements so you can see what we are all about: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/page/journal/15733599/homepage/editorial-board

Our board includes DEI leads (Nadine Channaoui, and Kim Zayhowski), deputy editors with deep methodological expertise in both quantitative (Ben Helm, and Hetanshi Naik) and qualitative work (Felicity Boardman and Tasha Wainstein), and members from around the world who will be acting as “ambassadors” for our journal, including members in the Philippines (Peter James Abad), Middle East (Reem Alsulaiman), Europe (Ramona Moldovan, Andrada Ciuca, Christophe Cordier) Australia (Jodie Ingles), and India (Sahil Kejriwal), with more to come! Members of the board have terms now, so you can expect to see turnover with new board members joining each year – we want to help people within our community to build their research skills through serving roles on the editorial board, and help members of our community advance in their careers by being able to list “member of editorial board” on their CVs!

CAC: Do you have any calls to action for individuals interested in learning more about becoming a reviewer?

JA: Funny you should mention it, yes, I do! We want authors to have a positive experience of working with our journal. One of the time-consuming steps of the editorial process is finding reviewers, and getting completed reviews returned to us… so if you get an email invite to review, and you feel qualified to do it, and have no conflict of interest - please do say yes! If you need some guidance on how to review, you will find instructions in the invitation email that you receive, and if you want coaching or mentorship in this area, the email also contains an invitation to connect with me and I will find a suitable mentor for you!

I would love for anyone who is interested in reviewing manuscripts for the journal to help us find you so we can connect with you to invite you to review by making a website profile – or updating your profile if you already have one. We have developed new classifications which allow people to describe their areas of expertise. We use this to match manuscripts for review with reviewers. If you’re interested, updating your classifications should take only 2-3 minutes, and here is how you do it!

1. Go to: www.editorialmanager.com/jogc/default2.aspx
2. Select "Login" (or "register" if you've not used this website before)
3. Once logged in, click on your name in the top right hand corner of the screen 
4. Select the "update my information" button that pops up in the little box
5. Scroll down to "Areas of interest or expertise" and select the button at the bottom of that section that says: "Select Personal Classifications"
6. Follow the instructions on the screen to select your personal classifications 

Acting as a reviewer is a volunteer role, and we are all super busy, but returning reviews to us within the timeframe we set out in the email invitation is really helpful for the journal and for the authors whose work is being reviewed. You can get Professional Activity Credits (PACs) for reviewing manuscripts for the journal.

And for anyone who is interested in publishing with us – that’s great! Please take a close look at the instructions on the journal website about how to format your submission, and let us know if you would like an office hours consultation. I am super excited that we will be launching “office hours” as an opportunity for researchers/authors to talk with members of the editorial board. Essentially, lots of the research that is submitted to our journal comes from student research projects – and I want authors to feel that the editorial board is more accessible to them, and there to support them in the publishing process. Office hours will be available for authors/researchers to consult with editorial board members. We will be launching a formal process for requesting office hours, but in the meantime, anyone who would like to have a consultation like this should just email me at Jehannine.austin@ubc.ca.

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