The Royal Society
Surayya Johar is an experienced publishing editor currently serving at The Royal Society since February 2015, where responsibilities include manuscript administration, implementing publishing strategies and budgets, and organizing marketing agreements. Previously, Surayya held the position of Assistant Editor at BMJ Open from December 2013 to January 2015, focusing on manuscript decision-making and peer reviewer selection. Prior experience includes serving as Deputy Managing Editor at BioMed Central, managing two science-medical journals, and working as a Commissioning Editor at Future Science Group. Surayya holds a Master of Arts in Film and Television: Theory, Culture and Industry and a Bachelor of Science in Microbiology from the University of Westminster.
The Royal Society
The Royal Society is the world's oldest scientific academy in continuous existence, and has been at the forefront of enquiry and discovery since its foundation in 1660. The backbone of the Society is its Fellowship of the most eminent scientists of the day, elected by peer review for life and entitled to use FRS after their name. There are currently more than 60 Nobel Laureates amongst the Society's approximately 1400 Fellows and Foreign Members. Throughout its history, the Society has promoted excellence in science through its Fellowship and Foreign Membership, which has included Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, Ernest Rutherford, Albert Einstein, Dorothy Hodgkin, Francis Crick, James Watson and Stephen Hawking. The Society is independent of government, as it has been throughout its existence, by virtue of its Royal Charters. In 1663, The Royal Society of London for the Improvement of Natural Knowledge was granted its Arms and adopted the motto "Nullius in verba", an expression of its enduring commitment to empirical evidence as the basis of knowledge about the natural world. The Society's activities include influencing science and education policy, funding leading researchers, publishing journals that span all the sciences and the history of science, and the provision of science communication activities for a variety of public audiences.