As the Director of Publications Operations at the American Geophysical Union (AGU), the largest scientific society in the world for Earth and space sciences, Mia Ricci knows about making a global impact. In addition to overseeing the operations and publishing strategy for 24 scientific journals and ESS Open Archive, the AGU preprint server, Mia leads initiatives such as the Guidelines for Governance of Indigenous Data in Scholarly Publishing¹ and AGU’s Inclusion in Global Research policy.² 

Science Editor’s Anna Jester recently spoke with Mia about the path her career has taken, how that led to her position at AGU, and how she is impacting scholarly publishing’s future.

Science Editor (SE): Please tell us about AGU and your role there.

Mia Ricci: At the American Geophysical Union, our mission is to advance discovery in our fields, supporting researchers, for the benefit of humanity. My work is in the publications department, as the Director of Publications Operations. AGU Pubs has a staff of 29, the majority of whom work on the operations team running the editorial offices of our journals. We partner closely with our 1000+ Editors and Associate Editors, and with Wiley, our publishing partner. It’s an incredible gig!

I wear a second hat within the department, together with Paige Wooden, as Co-Leads for our publications diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility efforts, something that is very dear to my heart. This is also one of AGU’s organizational core values and it’s weaved into everything that we do at the Pubs department.

SE: How did your career path lead to scientific editing and publishing? 

Ricci: Similarly to many people in scholarly publishing who are around my age, I stumbled into this field! When I was a senior in college, studying journalism at the City College of the City University of New York (CUNY), I was looking for internships. Back then, in the early 2000s, it was really hard to find a paid internship. I was working my way through college, paying tuition on my own. Wiley was one employer offering paid internships so I applied and ended up interning there as a production assistant. I fell in love pretty quickly—with this industry I didn’t even know existed. As an undergraduate student not in STEM, studying journalism, we didn’t read scientific content. I had no idea this industry exists! Immediately into the internship, I was blown away learning about what a massive role scholarly publishing holds in the entire scientific and scholarly ecosystem; how we help scholars make this world better. It’s pretty incredible. After graduation, I briefly did the journalism thing, worked for a gold magazine as a reporter, not knowing anything about golf—but hey I got to travel to beautiful courses and interviewed famous golfers. But I stayed connected with the Wiley friends I made during my internship, and I later went back to work there as an editorial assistant. I stayed at Wiley for 13 years, working in editorial and journals publishing. I mostly managed society journals and relationships and worked in various disciplines, including life science, health science, and physical science. Prior to moving to AGU, I was the publisher leading a team responsible for all of Wiley’s food, Earth, and environmental sciences journals in the US, except for AGU’s.

SE: What do you enjoy most about your career?

Ricci: There’s so much! I love solving problems. There is so much that goes into publishing a journal. I really enjoy being the publisher, overseeing various components and being essentially the one connecting all the pieces together, especially when solving a challenge—editorial, peer review, production, business strategy, marketing, communications, etc., working cross-functionally and in partnerships with other colleagues.

At this stage of my career, I really love being a people leader. This is where I have grown the most and feel like I’ve made the most impact, in the nearly two decades I’ve spent in this industry. Much has transpired in society, science, technology, and scholarly publishing—it can be challenging to navigate. Guiding people through this evolution, training and upskilling staff, building and rebuilding new structures together, helping people go through difficult societal shifts and personal challenges—all of this is hard work and requires committed leaders. I love this work. It’s not always visible or recognized, but I find it to be the most rewarding, mentoring and coaching others, and creating a great work environment where everyone can thrive. 

I’ve also been really enjoying working on the society side. I’m about to sound like I’ve drunk the kool aid but I really do feel very connected to the mission, working at a nonprofit like AGU. I work directly with so many researchers day in and day out, with our members and volunteer leaders, the folks we’re serving as publishers. They’re so passionate. I love this, especially now, when there is a critical, urgent need to instill trust in science and to support the people conducting that science! Scholarly publishers hold just one step in the research and science ecosystem, and I’m so proud to be responsible for that step, and I take it very seriously. 

SE: Would you share more with us about challenges you face? 

Ricci: Prior to this year, I was primarily focused on finding solutions to streamline our publishing operations. AGU Pubs is a creative and driven place—we have amazing projects and initiatives pushing science forward. Some of that work is on advancing open data and open software in our fields, some are on creating new innovative publication types like our Notebooks Now project, some are on creating new and more inclusive and equitable policies, and some work exploring Gen AI [generative artificial intelligence] and LLMs [large language models]. All of this is additional work, additional hours on our staff, whose main job is to make sure we shepherd every single submission through the publishing process. So my challenge has always been—what can I take off so we can add new things? How do I make the publishing process less onerous to our staff, our editors, our authors, so they can engage with these new activities that can propel science forward. 

Without a doubt, 2025 has been a challenging year for everyone who’s a participant in the research ecosystem in the US, including scholarly publishers and scientific societies. So many in our communities have lost funding, lost jobs, and are facing tremendous changes in their professional homes, and many are looking to their scholarly societies for help. AGU is very focused on our advocacy efforts and supporting our community—and the same goes for the Publications department. Our amazing editors and Publication Committee members are so committed,³ and they have been very vocal out there, and using our journals as platforms⁴ to point out issues and to rally our communities. It’s really inspiring to see. There’s been a lot of vulnerable and inspiring conversations happening within AGU, and also in the scholarly-publishing industry. At the end of the day, I want to be able to do my job well, and my job is to help get research out there. I feel that the scholarly publishing community has become closer as we experience similar challenges and changes, and there’s a lot more cross-collaboration happening as we try to navigate all this together. 

SE: We are always stronger together. Another thing shared across this industry is the need for a good answer to, “How do you describe what you do to someone who doesn’t know scientific editing and publishing?”

Ricci: Oh man, great question! I think it depends on the audience. I always fear people’s eyes glazing over as I start nerding out about scholarly publishing when socializing, but it is a very cool job and you’re surrounded by all these brilliant researchers and scientists. Usually, I just say that I’m a publisher, somewhat like magazines and newspapers, but for research and science articles. I also mention we work with scientists to get their research published. For young kids, it helps to mention AGU publishes a lot of NASA research!

SE: What skills, abilities, and personal attributes have you found to be essential to success in your job or this field?

Ricci: Well, I’m currently a leader for a large ops team. In a good organization with a healthy culture, successful leadership can look very different from one person to the next. There’s not just one type. Scholarly publishing is so large that I think there’s a place for everyone, with all kinds of personal attributes and interests.

I think good skills and abilities that anyone should continuously practice are to keep an open mind, to be a good listener, and to practice agility. Our industry rapidly, and endlessly, evolves. We must be willing to experiment, communicate, and have tough discussions with customers, authors, researchers, and editors to navigate challenges and reach agreement on the path forward. Just thinking about things like open access, or right now about AI, you ask ten different people what they think is worth exploring, or goals, and you will get ten different answers. I think good listening skills, good facilitation, and the ability to find that middle ground that every one can buy into, something that will energize everyone—that’s all really important. Or you’ll be stuck at talking and never move forward! 

I also believe that success is something that we should really own together and enable in each other. Starting out in my career, as a Chinese-Indonesian immigrant woman, and the first degree-holder in my family, I didn’t “see” many people like me in leadership roles in scholarly publishing. We all need inspiration and mentorship to move up and feel motivated. We need to create, fertilize, and water a community of strong women and with diversity at all levels. I had three amazing women managers in a row, generously mentoring me. I still talk to them and their support is a big part of the successes I’ve had in my career. So this is something that I try to do as well, though it never feels enough. To be successful in scholarly publishing, or any job really, it’s essential to have a supportive work environment, and that’s something that anyone can do as a leader, as a team member, an individual contributor, or as an organization. A work culture that enables success doesn’t happen automatically, it has to be done intentionally. 

SE: How do you stay connected with co-workers and others in your field, especially given you work remotely?

Ricci: I began working remotely 6 months prior to the COVID pandemic, and the AGU pubs department works fully remote. Over the years I think everyone has improved on figuring out how best to work in a remote environment and to create connections. For example, we dedicate time in our department meetings to do virtual games together, and we meet in person once a year for a department retreat.

For me, I also enjoy getting involved with the various scholarly publishing orgs to feel more connected to others. I love attending conferences and industry events whenever possible. At CSE annual meetings and fall symposiums, and other industry meetings like Society for Scholarly Publishing (SSP), International Society of Managing and Technical Editors (ISMTE), and C4DISC, there are innovations, brainstorming, and collaboration happening all around. I learn so much and it feels good for my soul to be surrounded by people who understand our world, our mission, and our challenges! 

 I also love that a lot of the publishing organizations now have mentorship programs, and various committees you can volunteer for—another way to grow your network and build confidence. This has been true for me for sure. I joined my first committee maybe 10 years ago, and was shy at first, but have learned so much through committee work and made so many friends and connections. 

SE: If you hadn’t pursued scientific publication, what might you be doing? 

Ricci: Journalism! I was born and raised in Jakarta, Indonesia, and I lived there until I was 18, before moving to the US for college. When I was a kid growing up, my dad had stacks of National Geographic magazines in his office, and I just loved reading them. It made the world seem so big and magical! My dream then was to be a journalist for Nat Geo and that was what inspired me to get a bachelor’s in Journalism. I think now I would love to combine that with my love for food and be a food writer!

SE: Can you tell our readers something that might surprise us about you?

Ricci: I went skydiving once, which is very unusual for someone scared of heights. Zero out of ten stars, do not recommend. I was terrified and tried to face my fear, but it only cemented the fear, so won’t be doing it again! I’m an eldest daughter and very much have that energy, wanting to tackle any challenge, and I now have a certificate that proves it happened.

SE: What is on the horizon for you?

Ricci: I’m looking forward to finishing another strong year at AGU Pubs. It’s been a year like no other, in so many ways, and our team has accomplished so much. 

I’m particularly excited about a long-term project that’s now in its final stages: a community-led effort to create Guidelines for the Governance of Indigenous Data in Scholarly Publishing¹. I’ve been working closely with a group of incredible Indigenous scholars and leaders to create this first-of-its-kind guideline for nearly 2 years now, and we’re aiming to publish this community resource in January. There’s now over a hundred of us working on this project, bringing together Indigenous scholars with editors, publishers, and publishing infrastructure experts and providers. There’s a lot of love and hard work that went into it and I’m so proud and honored to be a part of this massive community work. To do it right, it must be community-led. We talked earlier about how this type of work is so close to my heart. I think there’s so much misconception out there about what equity work really is, and this project is one example of how equitable policies and structures can make science better. 

Last year at AGU Pubs, I rolled out our Inclusion in Global Research policy,² which we also refer to as our “parachute science” policy. It took us 2 years to develop and launch this policy. AGU was the first large society publisher to have launched a policy like this and the first society publisher adopting The TRUST Code.⁵ It’s an amazing scaffolding—you need to build these types of policies into the foundation for a more equitable structure. A few years before that, when I was still at Wiley, I co-led the development and roll out of our author name change policy,⁶ which also took a long time to develop. But now it’s been adopted by over 2000 journals. These types of inclusive policy developments often take a long time, and in my experience, part of it is because of the time it takes to address the various concerns and discomfort. There’s always a group who says that it’s never going to work, we’re going to get so many complaints, etc. But every time, it ended up working. There are so many in the community who support it—who want the research ecosystems to be more equitable and inclusive. Most people just need someone to start the work, and then they will come and join and help you finish the work!

References and Links

1. https://indigenousdatalab.org/2024/11/27/publishing-guidelines-for-the-governance-of-indigenous-data/
2. Xenopoulos MA, Bond-Lamberty B, Desai AR, Huntzinger D, Buchanan PR, East AE, Singh A, Wooden P, Jewett K, Ricci M. AGU publications updates authorship policy to foster greater equity and transparency in global research collaborations. AGU Adv. 2024;5:e2024AV001298. https://doi.org/10.1029/2024AV001298.
3. Xenopoulos MA, Beal L, Caprarelli G, Caylor K, Destouni G, Duan Q, Hauck SA, II, Huber M, Karnauskas KB, Lajtha K, Lugaz N, et al. Commitment to advance excellence and inclusion in the Earth and space sciences scholarly publications. AGU Adv. 2025;6:e2025AV001726. https://doi.org/10.1029/2025AV001726. 
4. Wysession ME, Beal L, Caprarelli G, Caylor K, Destouni G, Dixon J, Duan Q, Hauck SA, II, Karnauskas KB, Lajtha K, Lugaz N, et al. The Executive Order “Restoring Gold Standard Science” is dangerous for America. AGU Adv. 2025;6:e2025AV002011. https://doi.org/10.1029/2025AV002011. 
5. https://doi.org/10.48508/GCC/2018.05
6. https://www.wiley.com/en-us/publish/editor-insights/new-author-name-change-policy/

Anna Jester (https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8543-0311) is Senior Manager, Partner Success, for Wiley.