A global network of researchers

AuthorAID Mentors of the Year 2016 award winners

Find out more about the Mentor of the Year competition 2016 HERE

Dr. Barbara Kabai Burman

1st Place - Barbara Burmen, Kenya 

Dr Barbara Kabai Burmen, a Senior Research Officer at the Kenya Medical Research Institute Center for Global Health Research in Kenya, has been registered as an AuthorAID mentor since May 2016. She has also acted as a facilitator on AuthorAID online research-writing courses. She has been involved in more than six mentoring interactions and also acted as a guest facilitator on the AuthorAID research-writing course held in October/November 2016.

Dr Burmen has authored over 10 publications in peer-reviewed journals. She has made numerous international conference presentations on TB and HIV operations research. She is also a recipient of many international awards. For her efforts in contributing to research, her community and the international community, Dr Burmen was awarded the first prize for 2016’s American Journal Experts Gold Medal Researcher.

Barbara gives some top tips for mentors and mentees. You can find her tips here

Matt Hodgkinson

2nd Place - Matt Hodgkinson, United Kingdom

Matt has been an AuthorAID mentor since 2013, and last year he was involved in over 10 mentoring interactions.

Matt started in Open Access journal publishing in 2003 as an editor handling peer review on the BMC series with BioMed Central in London. He became a Senior Editor and Publishing Editor, worked on the journals BMC Biology and Trials, and launched BMC Medical Genomics, BMC Research Notes, and BMC Systems Biology. He moved to the Public Library of Science in Cambridge in 2010, as an Associate Editor and then Senior Editor on PLOS ONE, screening submissions, helping academic editors with difficult manuscripts, training editors in critical appraisal and working on publication ethics and reporting. He joined Hindawi in 2016 as Head of Research Integrity, overseeing the publication ethics processes and policies.

You can watch an interview with Matt about his mentoring experience here. Matt gives some tips for mentors and mentees. Click here to read his tips.

Dr. Shiri Diskin

3rd place - Shiri Diskin, Israel

Shiri signed up as a mentor in 2013 and has been involved in nine AuthorAID mentoring interactions during 2016.

Dr Shiri Diskin obtained her cell and molecular biology PhD at Tufts University Medical School, and her medical-writing profession while working at Teva Pharmaceuticals. Over the years she has written, edited and reviewed scientific journal articles, books and regulatory documents in both academic and pharmaceutical industry settings.

Click here to read what Shiri has to say on what makes successful mentor-mentee collaboration.