Meeting the Raelyn Cole Editorial Fellows at the ASLO 2023 Aquatic Sciences Meeting: Perspectives on Professional Development, Writing, and Finding your Academic Superpower

The ASLO 2023 Aquatic Sciences Meeting took place 4 to 9 June in Palma, Spain. The theme, resilience and recovery, applies to the natural world and our lives. Adaptability to disruptions is a valuable trait for early career researchers (ECRs), as they must deal with various barriers to success. We introduced ECRs to initiatives aimed at overcoming these barriers—the ASLO Raelyn Cole Editorial Fellowship and associated opportunities. The Fellowship enables ECRs to develop scientific publishing skills as authors, peer reviewers, and editorial board members. It also fosters personal growth, contributing to resilience in academia, and exchange of lessons with peers. Approximately 30 ECRs attended the session; below we briefly describe the Fellowship's origin, lessons learnt by the Fellows, and topics of interest from the audience. This Fellowship honors Raelyn Cole (Managing Editor of Limnology and Oceanography from 1965 to 1996) and her long and productive scientific career. After Raelyn's passing, her husband Dale approached ASLO to establish an endowment in her name; Teresa Curto, ASLO's executive director, suggested a scientific publishing fellowship for ECRs. The Fellowship started in 2017, funded by Dale's initial and ongoing donations, as well as ASLO's matching contributions. Limnology Poulson-Ellestad et al. 2020), and workshops run at various conferences. A key aspect I've enjoyed about the Fellowship—both during and after my term—is the community and relationships I've gained. This includes ASLO broadly (I remain actively involved as EiC of L a skill can, in some cases, save a career. As a fellow, I wrote an article about concise scientific writing (Hotaling 2020), which is ASLO's most downloaded article of all-time. I also used the fellowship to create opportunities by starting the L it depends on one's interests and developmental stages of projects, being heavier at times and slower at others. Time-tracking was raised by Erin, who shared her use of the app Toggle to manage tasks and, thus, free up her schedule for Fellowship-related activities. During his introduction, Scott touched on his personal motivation for applying: he was a (self-proclaimed) mediocre graduate student who did not publish until late in his PhD. Before writing his first paper he often contemplated what to do with his career, since academia was not it. He persevered to write that first paper, expecting it to go slowly. Much to his (and his advisor's) surprise, writing seemed to come naturally. Bolstered by positive feedback, he spent more time writing and published >10 papers during the last two years of his PhD. Discovering his academic superpower (writing) was a boon to his career. The audience was intrigued by the topic and suggested that the Fellows organize a workshop on “How to find your academic superpower. They were also curious about the other Fellows' superpowers (Laura is a prolific writer, Rita gets things done, and Erin excels at time-tracking) ; and wondered if all superpowers are welcome in the Fellowship. Yes, skill diversity is key, as it helps the Fellows connect to their ECR peers. Someone asked if it would be possible to be better at speaking than writing and still be selected as a Fellow—speaking skills are much appreciated in the Fellowship, and we think it is probably easier to learn how to write academically than how to speak confidently. We also noted that writing is made easier by first presenting data, even if only to yourself. Concerns were raised about potential disadvantages to applicants who speak English as a foreign language (EFL), and whether ASLO supports EFL ECRs. Applications to the Fellowship are encouraged from all, and being an EFL speaker is a strength in many ways. As the first EFL Fellow, Rita has dedicated her Fellowship to help others break the language barrier in academic publishing. She attended the Latin American Ocean Sciences Meeting (COLACMAR) in 2022, during which she hosted a workshop in Spanish on how to write a paper. There, she also connected with ECRs and shared opportunities for career development, while engaging them to form a group of Latin American ECRs in Ocean Sciences. ASLO journals have a society-minded way of working and strive to help authors, especially ECRs, overcome challenges to publication. While there is no formal system in place, support can be found—we expect many ASLO members would happily donate their time to language-edit manuscripts from EFL applicants. This is already done, for example, in the context of the ECPH. The audience also wanted to know how ECRs can get invited to peer review for a journal. We have three suggestions: (1) join the ASLO Peer Review ECR list (https: //docs. google. com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdoIiMAⱼgz60IiPLR0v0rA5xY2KmQHGnORts8ZCo-AxJVnkQ/viewform), which feeds into Scholar One, the platform used by associate editors to invite reviewers; (2) create an author profile for your journal of choice—editors will link your expertise to relevant manuscripts; and (3) self-nominate as reviewer for preferred journals which offer that option (e. g. , Royal Society - https: //forms. royalsociety. org/s/RFvolunteers2021). Laura, L&O Bulletin Editor, was asked about the journal scope and article length for L&O Bulletin submissions. For those wishing to submit, relevant information is available at: https: //aslopubs. onlinelibrary. wiley. com/hub/journal/15396088/about/author-guidelines. We biasedly encourage ECRs to apply for the Fellowship! Follow our X/Twitter account (@rcefₐslo) for upcoming calls. For questions, email us at email protected. RMFS, EP, and SH were fully supported by ASLO and the Raelyn Cole Editorial Fellowship to travel to ASM for this session. We also acknowledge Dale Cole and family, who generously support the Raelyn Cole Editorial Fellowship under which this manuscript was developed. LJF is Editor of Limnology and Oceanography Bulletin. The authors declare that they have no other competing interests.