The Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA) is pleased to welcome Zen Faulkes as the new Program Director beginning July 5, 2023. Following a competitive recruitment process, Faulkes was selected for the role by DORA’s Chair, Stephen Curry, and Kevin Wilson, ASCB Vice President of Policy, Governance and Meetings at the American Society for Cell Biology, DORA’s administrative entity. DORA’s Acting Program Director, Haley Hazlett, will return to her role as DORA’s Program Manager. Stephen Curry said, “I am delighted that we have succeeded in recruiting Zen to the role of DORA Program Director. He brings enormous knowledge and passion to the role and I am sure that he will help to propel DORA into a highly productive second decade!”
About the new director
“Working for DORA will be a big, exciting challenge. DORA’s mission — helping universities assess their researchers sensibly, fairly, and consistently — is more important than ever.” -Zen Faulkes
Faulkes brings his extensive academic, administrative, and leadership experience to the role of DORA Program Director. After earning his Doctorate in Biology from the University of Victoria (Canada) in 1996, he went on to become a graduate program coordinator as an Assistant Professor of Biology at the University of Texas-Pan American (USA). From 2015 to 2020, Faulkes served as a Professor of Biology at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (USA) before moving on to become Assistant Professor at the School of Interdisciplinary Science at McMaster University (Canada).
In addition to his background in academia, Faulkes has been an active advocate for responsible scholarly practices for over 20 years. He has written articles about authorship disputes, post-publication peer review, and science crowdfunding, and organized roundtables on predatory publishing and institutions dictating where their researchers can publish — the latter for DORA’s tenth anniversary.
