Welcoming new Editor Graham Scott as we bid farewell to Pat Wright

Graham Scott (left) is joining the team of JEB Monitoring Editors and Pat Wright (right) is stepping down after 7 years as a JEB Editor.The start of a new year is always a thrilling time, filled with hope and optimism, heralding new beginnings and opportunities. After an exciting 12 months of celebration in 2025, marking the 100th anniversary of The Company of Biologists – the journal's not-for-profit publisher – we continue looking to the future as we greet the arrival of a new member to the team of Monitoring Editors, Graham Scott from McMaster University, Canada.Scott recounts how his association with the journal dates back to his undergraduate days. Having registered initially as an engineering undergraduate at McMaster, Scott was inspired by Chris Wood's first year physiology course and eventually joined Wood's lab for his undergraduate thesis, investigating the effects of metal pollution on trout physiology and behaviour. ‘My first paper came from this work and was published in JEB’, says Scott, who remembers being impressed by the quality of the copyediting and proofs. ‘I learned that this attention to detail is rare in other journals’, he says. In addition, the study attracted media attention thanks to a JEB press release, which led to Scott being interviewed by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's Quirks and Quarks radio show; ‘This was an incredible experience for me as a young researcher’, he remembers.After a Master's degree, with Trish Schulte at University of British Columbia (UBC), Canada, which inspired his fascination with evolutionary physiology and the underpinning molecular mechanisms, Scott joined Bill Milsom (UBC) to investigate bar-headed geese. ‘At the time there were anecdotal reports that this species could fly over the highest mountains in the Himalayas’, recalls Scott, who signed up without realising just how difficult it was going to be to locate birds to work with. ‘I ended up having to source birds from across the country from breeders that would raise waterfowl as a hobby’, he chuckles, describing an incident at Vancouver airport when his suitcase was delayed and he had to wait for ages with the geese that he was transporting in their carrier while they honked loudly and continuously; ‘My life's most embarrassing moment!’ he exclaims. After a brief postdoc with Ian Johnston at University of St Andrews, UK, working on developmental plasticity in zebrafish, Scott returned to McMaster, where he is located still, to set up his own lab.‘My research examines how vertebrates respond and adapt to environmental challenges – both natural and human induced’, says Scott, who focuses on the cardiorespiratory and metabolic adaptations of high-altitude species. Over the course of his career, Scott has supervised 19 graduate students and postdoctoral researchers and currently runs a busy lab with undergraduates, MSc and PhD students and postdocs. ‘The best thing about working with students and postdocs is watching them grow as scientists’, says Scott.Reacting to the invitation from Craig Franklin, JEB Editor-in-Chief, to join the team of Monitoring Editors, Scott says, ‘It was a huge honour to be invited to join a journal that does so much for the comparative physiology community and has been so instrumental in helping me throughout my career’, adding that there was never any doubt that he'd accept. And he is keenly aware of the responsibility that he is taking on to uphold the journal's reputation for rigorous peer review. ‘Being a JEB Editor will require hard decisions’, he admits, but his experience of the constructive peer review mediated by his predecessors at the journal makes him well placed to support early-career and senior researchers as they negotiate peer review of their new submissions. Marking Scott's arrival at the journal, Franklin says, ‘Graham's work bridging mechanistic physiology with evolutionary and environmental perspectives makes him an ideal addition to JEB's editorial team. I am delighted to welcome him to the group of Editors’.With the arrival of Scott, it is sadly time to say farewell to a long-standing member of the community, Pat Wright (Professor Emeritus, University of Guelph, Canada), as she steps down from the journal. After joining the team of Monitoring Editors in 2018, Wright took on the role of Deputy Editor-in-Chief in 2020, where one of her main responsibilities was as an ambassador for early-career researchers, considering ways that the journal could support and promote this important career stage. ‘There is no manual on how to achieve a career in science’, says Wright, understanding the support that early-career researchers need when experiencing research setbacks and the disappointment of rejection letters. ‘The research road can be long and hard for students’, she says. For Wright, the main highlight of her time as Deputy Editor-in-Chief was the workshops that she ran for early-career researchers at The Society for Experimental Biology and Canadian Society of Zoologists conferences. ‘The students and postdocs were eager to work with peers and mentors to build their skills with hands-on exercises’, says Wright, who recalls that the workshops covered topics ranging from how to write a covering letter to accompany a manuscript submission to how to promote research to a broad audience, including the all-important ‘elevator pitch’ summarising their research in a soundbite. In addition, during her 5 years as Deputy Editor-in-Chief, Wright assessed over 350 applications for the JEB Travelling Fellowship scheme, allowing early-career researchers to visit other laboratories to learn a new technique or perform an experiment. And when JEB launched two new grants to support junior faculty staff in 2023, as part of the journal's centenary celebrations, Wright took on the responsibility for assessing those applications as well.Representing the journal at conferences was another highlight for Wright, who enjoyed seeing old friends and colleagues and talking to early-career researchers about the funding opportunities provided by the journal. In 2023, Wright also co-organised the annual JEB symposium, Developmental Plasticity: From Mechanisms to Evolutionary Processes, with Katie Gilmour, with the intention of bringing the field of developmental plasticity into clearer focus for comparative animal physiologists and biomechanists. ‘It was exciting to bring together diverse researchers who normally would not mingle’, says Wright. The resulting special issue published in 2024 covered the impact of early conditions on development in organisms ranging from C. elegans to dung beetles, rats and zebra finches, with the key theme that developmental plasticity is both a product and a cause of evolution. ‘We learned that there are a terrific variety of approaches that can be used to understand the factors that impact the developmental trajectory in animals’, she adds.Franklin reflects on Wright's dedication to JEB, overseeing the peer review of nearly 700 manuscripts over 7 years of service, and thanks her, saying, ‘Pat's legacy of nurturing the next generation of experimental biologists will endure for years to come. I will miss her warmth, insight and commitment that have strengthened both JEB and our broader community’.