Each year, on July 1, a new group of ASLO members begins their term on the ASLO Board of Directors. When we reported the results of this year's election, we inadvertently omitted the election of a third independent member, Naomi Levine. Our apologies to Naomi for this error! Please join us in welcoming our newly elected Board members: Patricia Glibert (President-Elect); Phil Taylor (Treasurer); Naomi Levine, Kristen Buck and Bob Chen (Members-at-Large); and Edna Fernandez-Figueroa (Student Board Member). We look forward to working with you!
Our new Board members, as well as myself, have many challenges to face in these uncharted times, but this creates many opportunities to develop the company in new directions to meet the need to be greener, bluer, fairer and more inclusive! I am both excited and nervous to begin my term as Chairman. It is an honour to serve and I thank you for your confidence. I certainly have a tough act to follow in Mike Pace. Mike is not only a superb scientist with a wealth of knowledge, but he is also a thoughtful, calm and hard-working leader. He has handled some pretty difficult situations as chairman and I would like to thank him for his service. Four fabulous women are rotating on the Board: Linda Duguay, our former Chair; Ngozi Oguguah, our student Board member from Nigeria; Diana Varela, Chair of our Mentoring Committee; and Kim Wickland, who has worn many hats as Chair of the Awards Committee and now Co-Chair of the Meetings Committee. Thank you all for your thoughtful service, insightful perspectives and hard work - it has been such a pleasure working with you all - I will miss you all very much!
And finally, some good news, not BIG news. We are delighted that our new journal, L&O Letters, received its first impact factor (IF) this week: an impressive 5.24! Our other journals also scored well, with an IF of 3.77 for L&O and an IF of 2.44 for Methods. With the new 2020 IFs published on Monday, ASLO journals occupy places 1 (Letters), 3 (L&O) and 4 (Methods) in Limnology, and places 2 (Letters), 5 (L&O) and 23 (Methods) in Oceanography. To all the authors who publish in our journals, we are deeply grateful for your essential contributions to the understanding of the aquatic sciences through the publication of your research in the Limnology and Oceanography family of journals. We are very proud of this ranking and the achievements of all our journals, but it would not have been possible without the hard work of so many people.
We thank and acknowledge the outstanding efforts and leadership of our ASLO journal editors - Dave Hambright (L&O) and Maggie Xenopoulos (Associate Special Issues Editor), Paul Kemp (L&O Methods) and Jim Cloern (L&O Letters) - as well as the associate editors and thousands of peer reviewers without whom our journals could not be published. Special thanks to the founding editor of L&O Letters, Pat Soranno, for her vision, dedication and expertise in launching the new ASLO journal. The incredible impact factor of 5.242 propels this ASLO journal to first place in limnology and second place in oceanography, which is a tremendous achievement.
There has never been a better time to publish in ASLO journals. We are working closely with our publisher and are planning many new features for our journals this year, to continually improve the experience of our authors and readers while promoting their work. The magazines in the L&O family are society magazines created by the community, for the community. We invite you to join us and continue this collaboration by writing and editing for our ASLO journals. Congratulations to everyone who contributes to the success of our magazines! We are truly grateful for your contributions and efforts.
Roxane Maranger,
Chairman of ASLO