A new editor for RNCSE

NCSE is pleased to welcome Stephanie Keep as the new editor of its journal Reports of the National Center for Science Education. She succeeds Andrew J. Petto, who is retiring from the post after nearly twenty years of service.

"I'm thrilled to become part of NCSE's team working to defend the integrity of science education," Keep exclaimed. "I'm looking forward not only to editing Reports but also to helping NCSE's communication efforts in any way I can."

Keep was trained as a paleobiologist at Wellesley College and Harvard University (where she served as a faculty assistant to Stephen Jay Gould). In the publishing world, she is involved in editing college- and high school-level textbooks in environmental science, earth science, and biology, including Kenneth R. Miller and Joseph Levine's Biology, and in the education world, she recently worked on science curriculum and assessment initiatives in the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.

"We're delighted to welcome Stephanie Keep, with her comprehensive background in environmental science and evolution as well as her writing, editing, and education experience, as the new editor of Reports," said NCSE's executive director Ann Reid. "She has all the skills needed to succeed Anj Petto, who has been so critical to the journal’s success."

In addition to editing Reports of the NCSE and serving on the board of directors of NCSE from 1995 to 2014, Petto was the editor, with Laurie R. Godfrey, of Scientists Confront Creationism: Intelligent Design and Beyond (W. W. Norton, 2008). A physical anthropologist, Petto is currently Senior Lecturer in the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. He plans to use his "retirement" to re-animate Wisconsin Citizens for Science, which was guided by former NCSE staff member Skip Evans until his untimely death.

"I'm retiring, but I'm not disappearing," Petto explained. "I'll be enthusiastically supporting Reports and its new editor. And of course I'll still be supporting NCSE and all it does to promote the cause of good science education."

Reports of the National Center for Science Education is published by NCSE to promote the understanding of evolutionary sciences, of climate sciences, and of science as a way of knowing. The contents are freely available on-line, and submissions are welcome.