Each spring at the CSE Annual Meeting, attendees gather in a hotel ballroom for its annual Awards and Honors Luncheon to laud CSE members for their service and their contributions to the council. In addition, the CSE Award for Meritorious Achievement is presented to an individual or organization committed to improving scientific communication while prioritizing the high standards in editing; contributions that are in precise alignment with CSE’s own mission.

On May 2, 2020, Dana Compton, CSE president (2019–2020), on behalf of Awards and Honors Committee Chair and CSE past president (2017–2018) Sarah Tegen, announced the awardees to attendees of the virtual meeting.

There was no lunch in the ballroom with friends and colleagues, and we missed the opportunity to congratulate and thank the awardees in person for their contributions and their impressive achievements. Nonetheless, they were a bright spot in a year in which editors faced unprecedented challenges, both personal and professional. It is fitting to acknowledge and celebrate them again here in the pages of Science Editor.

CSE Certificates of Appreciation

The purpose of the Certificates of Appreciation are to commend members who have made laudable contributions to CSE.

Sonja Krane

Previously as co-chair, and this year as chair of the Development Committee, Sonja’s efforts to identify new sponsorship and funding opportunities for the annual meeting were impressive and highly valued. Under Sonja’s leadership, the committee increased the number of sponsors and donors, and offered new and exciting branding opportunities for CSE’s corporate partners and society sponsors. Sonja took on the role of sole chairperson in 2019–2020 and CSE happily recognized her for her impressive work.

Jennifer Mahar

CSE’s Editorial Policy Committee members, and attendees of the Ethics Clinic at CSE’s in person annual meeting, know that Jen Mahar has coordinated the Ethics Clinic’s cases over many years. (Ask Jen whether it has been 8 or 9 years of this important service to CSE.) Nominated for a Certificate of Appreciation for her tireless work, Jennifer Mahar’s efforts have benefitted the council and the participants in the Ethics Clinic since she came on board.

Brittany Swett  

Brittany Swett took on the role of subcommittee chair of CSE’s Short Courses on the Road program in 2018, assuming leadership responsibilities and promptly mounting short courses on the road in Durham, North Carolina, Washington, DC, and in Brazil in conjunction with ABEC, the Brazilian Association of Science Editors. Brittany Swett was acknowledged for her vision and her commitment to delivering CSE’s highly valued education programs to members, conference attendees, and certificate enrollees.

CSE Distinguished Service Award

The CSE Distinguished Service Award recognizes excellence in the performance of specific tasks by CSE members.

Patty Baskin

Patty Baskin received the 2020 CSE Distinguished Service Award for her dedication to CSE’s mission and vision.

Patty worked on the establishment of the Short Courses program, coordinating and teaching in 4 different Short Courses—sometimes juggling presentations in more than one course in a single annual meeting. She coordinated the Publication Management course for 10 years of the 15 years during which she was presenter, and she worked to outline and propose the advanced Publication Management Short Course, mounted in person in 2019 and as a virtual program at the May 2020 annual meeting. Patty established the Publications Ethics course, which she coordinated for 5 years. She also coordinated and taught in the first Short Course on the Road (Publication Ethics) in Washington, DC in 2017. She was a faculty presenter in 2017 and 2018 at the ABEC meetings in Brazil and was Director of CSE Short Courses for 2 years.

Patty is an integral part of CSE’s annual meetings, chairing the CSE Annual Meeting in 2007 in Austin, TX, and has served as a moderator at 18 annual meetings. She has served for many years on the Program Committee, the Editorial Policy committee, and the Education Committee. For the past 2 years, she has been CSE’s representative to C4DISC, the Coalition for Diversity and Inclusion in Scholarly Communications.

Many members know Patty served as Editor in Chief of Science Editor at a critical time, taking on the editorship as a weekend job for 2-1/2 years, contacting authors to recruit papers and editing manuscripts to produce quality articles relevant to CSE members. She led the task force that revitalized the journal, reimagining the online and print publication. Patty took a Board seat in 2015, and when serving as CSE president she started the Mentorship Committee, tapping CSE past presidents and board members to mentor editors at different points in their careers.

Patty has a day job as Executive Editor, Neurology® Journals at the American Academy of Neurology. CSE is grateful that Patty’s roots inside CSE, and across scientific publishing, are deep and CSE proudly presented her with its 2020 Distinguished Service Award.

CSE Award for Meritorious Achievement

Center for Open Science

This Award for Meritorious Achievement highlights the goal of CSE, namely the improvement of scientific communication through the pursuit of high standards in all activities connected with editing, and honors those who have made significant contributions toward this goal.

Recognized for their long-standing, successful efforts to increase openness, integrity, and reproducibility of research, The Center for Open Science’s (COS) vision is to ensure that the process, content, and outcomes are openly accessible by default, dovetailing with CSE’s own vision to be indispensable in the communication of science. The work of the COS brought the scientific publishing community the TOP guidelines, made registered reports mainstream, and incentivized researchers to share their work by providing publicly available Open Science Badges. By championing open science, COS helps ensure integrity, access, and FAIR use of research data. The scholarly communications community is indebted to the COS for its service.

The COS’s co-founder and executive director, Brian Nosek, accepted the CSE 2020 Award for Meritorious Achievement of behalf of the organization.