PhD Alumnus Lei Dries-Zhang

After finishing her PhD degree, Lei really wanted to enjoy Dutch life even longer. In those days it wasn’t easy to find a job, but her supervisor really helped her a lot with participating in research projects, and in the meantime continue to look for a job. Just before Lei’s PhD graduation, the publishing company Elsevier was looking for a Managing Editor in Development Economics to be based in their headquarter in Amsterdam. Lei turned out to be the ideal candidate. “They were very keen to further develop their market in China. So my Chinese background and my PhD at Development Economics made it a perfect match.”

Lei has made several promotions within Elsevier since 2013 and currently works as a Senior Publisher of Health & Medical journals. During the past years working in the publishing industry, she has managed scientific publications in different fields including Economics, Environmental Sciences, and Health & Medical Sciences. “In essence, it doesn't matter much anymore whether I work with doctors or with experts from other disciplines. My PhD experience helped me to understand what researchers really need, and from there, think about how to help them. Through my PhD I can synthesize articles in terms of what is the main idea and what should be the message. The data analysis skills, which I learned in my PhD, are still very useful for my current job.” Lei works closely with authors, reviewers and editors, to develop the journals together.

Networking is another essential part of the publisher role because identifying editors to really be the gatekeeper of the journals is very crucial. “Socializing is one of the things I really like, already from my PhD time.” It can be challenging but absolutely fun and rewarding to find excellent editors through various channels. “What drives me is that I am advancing science in general and can help researchers to get their papers published and become visible to as broad audience as possible.”