The rockefeller university

Event Details

Type

Academic Symposia

Speaker(s)

Susan King, Ph.D., executive director, The Rockefeller University Press, Introducing Rockefeller University Press

Tim Spencer, Ph.D., executive editor, Journal of Cell Biology, Rockefeller University Press, Introducing Journal of Cell Biology

Natalie Cain, Ph.D., executive editor, Journal of Experimental Medicine, Rockefeller University Press, Introducing Journal of Experimental Medicine

David Eisner, FRCP(Hon)FMedSci, editor-in-chief, Journal of General Physiology, University of Manchester, Introducing Journal of General Physiology (recorded)

Dusan Bogunovic, Ph.D., associate editor, Journal of Human Immunity, Columbia University, Introducing Journal of Human Immunity

Tim Fessenden, Ph.D., executive editor, Life Science Alliance, Rockefeller University Press, Introducing Life Science Alliance

Speaker bio(s)

Susan King joined Rockefeller University as Executive Director, Rockefeller University Press in June 2015 from the American Chemical Society, where she served as Senior Vice President, Journals Publishing Group for 8 years, after over 15 years at John Wiley & Sons in various editorial, marketing, and management roles. Susan received her PhD in immunology from the University of Glasgow. Susan currently serves on the American Physical Society Committee on Scientific Publications and has served as the Vice-Chair of the Scientific Publishing Committee of the American Heart Association.

Tim Spencer received his PhD from the City University of New York, where he studied the signaling mechanisms that underlie the promotion of axonal growth and regeneration following injury in the laboratory of Marie Filbin. He then moved to the laboratory of Chris Henderson at Columbia University, where he examined molecular markers of postnatal motor neuron maturation and elements of motor-specific disease. Tim served as a Senior Scientific Editor at Nature Neuroscience since 2011 before moving to RUP to become the Deputy Editor of the Journal of Cell Biology in 2016. He became Executive Editor in 2019.

Natalie Cain received her Ph.D. in biology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, working on membrane protein trafficking mechanisms under Chris Kaiser. She performed postdoctoral research with Daniel Starr at the University of California Davis, studying mechanisms of nuclear positioning. Natalie began her editorial career at Cell Reports in 2017 and advanced to Deputy Editor in 2020. There, she managed the editorial process for manuscripts in a broad array of topics, such as immunology, metabolism, cancer, neuroscience, and stem cell/developmental biology. Natalie joined JEM as Executive Editor in October 2025.

David Eisner has served as The British Heart Foundation Professor of Cardiac Physiology at University of Manchester since 1999. His research has focused on calcium cycling in the heart with particular interest on how the calcium content of the sarcoplasmic reticulum and the size of the systolic Ca transient are regulated. This work has revealed the importance of calcium fluxes being balanced during the heartbeat and has helped elucidate, not only the control of the normal Ca transient but also the changes that occur in heart failure and cardiac arrhythmias. His most recent work has studied the regulation of diastolic calcium concentration. His leadership roles include serving as President of The Physiological Society, as well as The Federation of European Physiological Societies.

Dusan Bogunovic is a Professor at the Columbia University Medical Center, New York, NY, USA. Dusan received his Ph.D. from the New York University Medical School in 2010. He then completed his postdoctoral fellowship at Rockefeller University in 2013. In 2014 he was appointed an Assistant Professor at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, where he rose to the ranks of Professor with tenure in 2021. In 2024 he was recruited by Columbia University, where he is the Vice Chair for basic research in the Department of Pediatrics and Director of the Center for Genetic Errors of Immunity. Work in his laboratory focuses on identifying genetic principles of immune system function. He has identified USP18 deficiency and TBK1 deficiency, to name a few, and how transcriptional silencing of one allele of an autosome can contribute to variable disease penetrance. Dusan became an Associate Editor at JHI in 2025.

Tim Fessenden received his PhD from the University of Chicago under the mentorship of Margaret Gardel, for his work on the cytoskeletal regulation of multicellular invasion. He then moved to MIT where he completed postdoctoral studies on tumor immunology and mechanisms of tumor sensing by dendritic cells. Tim joined the Journal of Cell Biology as a Scientific Editor in 2021 and was appointed Executive Editor of LSA in March 2025.

Open to

Tri-Institutional