Amy Brand (born October 20, 1962) is an American academic. Brand is the current Director and Publisher of the

MIT Press The MIT Press is a university press affiliated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, Massachusetts (United States). It was established in 1962. History The MIT Press traces its origins back to 1926 when MIT publ ...

, a position she assumed in July 2015. Previously, Brand served as the assistant provost of faculty appointments and information at

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...

, and as a vice president at Digital Science.Dizikes, Peter. MIT News Office
"Amy Brand Named New Director of the MIT Press."
MIT News. MIT University, 15 June 2015. Web. 19 Dec. 2016.

Background

Amy Brand grew up in the

Upper West Side The Upper West Side (UWS) is a neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It is bounded by Central Park on the east, the Hudson River on the west, West 59th Street to the south, and West 110th Street to the north. The Upper West ...

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five Boroughs of New York City, boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the List of co ...

, where she attended

Barnard College Barnard College of Columbia University is a private women's liberal arts college in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1889 by a group of women led by young student activist Annie Nathan Meyer, who petitioned Col ...

. She moved to

Cambridge, Massachusetts Cambridge ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. As part of the Greater Boston, Boston metropolitan area, the cities population of the 2020 United States Census, 2020 U.S. census was 118,403, making it the fourth most ...

, in 1985 for graduate school, and has lived mainly in the

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the capital city, state capital and List of municipalities in Massachusetts, most populous city of the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financ ...

area since then."Professional Profile: Amy Brand."
Society for Scholarly Publishing. Society for Scholarly Publishing, January 2009. Web. 19 December 2016.

Education

Brand received a

Bachelor of Arts Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four yea ...

linguistics Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Lingu ...

from

. She graduated in 1989 with a

PhD PHD or PhD may refer to: * Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), an academic qualification Entertainment * '' PhD: Phantasy Degree'', a Korean comic series * ''Piled Higher and Deeper'', a web comic * Ph.D. (band), a 1980s British group ** Ph.D. (Ph.D. albu ...

in cognitive science from the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a Private university, private Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern t ...

Career

Brand was a

postdoctoral researcher A postdoctoral fellow, postdoctoral researcher, or simply postdoc, is a person professionally conducting research after the completion of their doctoral studies (typically a PhD). The ultimate goal of a postdoctoral research position is to pu ...

at the Institute for Research in Cognitive Science at the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universit ...

from 1989 until 1992, conducting research in child language development, but ultimately decided to switch careers and move into

academic publishing Academic publishing is the subfield of publishing which distributes academic research and scholarship. Most academic work is published in academic journal articles, books or theses. The part of academic written output that is not formally pub ...

. Her first position was as an acquisitions editor at Lawrence Erlbaum Associates in 1992."Professional Profile: Amy Brand."
Society for Scholarly Publishing. Society for Scholarly Publishing, n.d. Web. 19 Dec. 2016. In 1994, Brand joined the

as a cognitive science

editor Editing is the process of selecting and preparing written, photographic, visual, audible, or cinematic material used by a person or an entity to convey a message or information. The editing process can involve correction, condensation, ...

for Bradford Books, MIT Press' cognitive science imprint. She was instrumental in developing CogNet,

's digital cognitive science collection – one of the first online academic communities of its kind.Manaktala, Gita
"Meet New Press Director Amy Brand (part Two)."
MIT Press. MIT Press, 1 Oct. 2015. Web. 19 Dec. 2016. From 2000 to 2008, Brand served as CrossRef's director of business and

product development In business and engineering, new product development (NPD) covers the complete process of bringing a new product to market, renewing an existing product or introducing a product in a new market. A central aspect of NPD is product design, along ...

.Manaktala, Gita
"Meet New Press Director Amy Brand (part One)."
MIT Press. MIT Press, 12 Aug. 2015. Web. 19 Dec. 2016. In she joined

as the program manager of the Office for

Scholarly Communication Scholarly communication involves the creation, publication, dissemination and discovery of academic research, primarily in peer-reviewed journals and books. It is “the system through which research and other scholarly writings are created, evalu ...

. She was later promoted to university-wide Assistant Provost for

Faculty Faculty may refer to: * Faculty (academic staff), the academic staff of a university (North American usage) * Faculty (division), a division within a university (usage outside of the United States) * Faculty (instrument) A faculty is a legal in ...

Appointments and Information. Beginning in early 2014, Brand served as VP of academic and research relations as well as

vice president A vice president, also director in British English, is an officer in government or business who is below the president (chief executive officer) in rank. It can also refer to executive vice presidents, signifying that the vice president is o ...

of North America at Digital Science.“Amy Brand."
Digital Science. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Dec. 2016.

MIT Press directorship

After an extensive search led by a committee of both MIT-affiliates and external academic publishing experts, Brand was named director of the

in July 2015. Chris Bourg, director of the MIT Libraries, stated that Brand's “breadth of experience across many sectors of the scholarly communication system make her the ideal leader of the

at this time of tremendous change and opportunity in scholarly publishing.” As director, Brand leads the Press through all areas of development, including trade acquisition and growing

’s books and journal digital offerings.Laloup, Jen
"Scholarly Books in the Digital World: An Interview Featuring Amy Brand."
PLOScast. 12 July 2016. Web. 19 Dec. 2016.

Affiliations

Brand currently serves on boards of several information and media organizations, including the

International Science Council The International Science Council (ISC) is an international non-governmental organization that unites scientific bodies at various levels across the social and natural sciences. The ISC was formed with its inaugural general assembly on 4 July 201 ...

Creative Commons Creative Commons (CC) is an American non-profit organization and international network devoted to educational access and expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share. The organization has releas ...

, the

Royal Society of Chemistry The Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) is a learned society (professional association) in the United Kingdom with the goal of "advancing the chemistry, chemical sciences". It was formed in 1980 from the amalgamation of the Chemical Society, the Ro ...

, th
Coolidge Corner Theater Foundation
She is on the Research Data and Information Committee of the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine.Policy and Global Affairs Division
"Members."
Board on Research Data and Information. The National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine, 2016. Web. 19 December 2016. She previously served on the Board on International Scientific Organizations of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine the

DuraSpace DuraSpace was a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization founded in 2009 when the Fedora Commons organization and the DSpace Foundation, two of the largest providers of open source repository software for managing and providing access to digital co ...

board of directors, and she chaired the academic advisory board of Altmetric, a commercial service that tracks how works of scholarship are discussed online.Liu, Jean
"Introducing the Altmetric Advisory Board."
Altmetric. 19 May 2016. Web. 19 December 2016. Brand was executive producer of the documentary

Picture a Scientist ''Picture a Scientist'' is a 2020 documentary highlighting gender inequality in science. The movie tells the stories of several prominent female researchers, and brings to light the barriers they encountered, including cases of discrimination ...

, a 2020 selection of the Tribeca Film Festival that highlights gender inequality in science. Brand co-created the CRediT

taxonomy Taxonomy is the practice and science of categorization or classification. A taxonomy (or taxonomical classification) is a scheme of classification, especially a hierarchical classification, in which things are organized into groups or types. ...

to reliably track contributions to team-based research outputs."Working Groups."
CRediT. CASARI, n.d. Web. 19 Dec. 2016. She was a founding member of the ORCID Board,Orcid
"Amy Brand."
Orcid: Connecting Research and Researchers. Orcid, n.d. Web. 19 December 2016. and advises on a number of community initiatives in digital scholarship.

Awards

Brand was awarded the Laya Wiesner Community Award (2021) and the American Association for the Advancement of Science Kavli Science Journalism Gold Award (2021). In 2015, Brand was awarded the Award for Meritorious Achievement by the

Council of Science Editors The Council of Science Editors (CSE), formerly the Council of Biology Editors (CBE; 1965–2000) and originally the Conference of Biology Editors (CBE; 1957–1965), is a United States-based nonprofit organization that supports editorial practic ...

(CSE). This award is the highest given by the CSE, and is given to “a person or institution that embraces the purposes of the CSE – the improvement of scientific communication through the pursuit of high standards in all activities connected with editing.”Digital Science
"Amy Brand, Digital Science, Receives 2015 CSE Award for Meritorious Achievement."
PR Newswire. Cision, 18 May 2015. Web. 19 Dec. 2016.

Publications

* On the emergence of syntax: A crosslinguistic study * Neuropsychological reasons for a transformational analysis of verbal passive * Language acquisition and syntactic theory: A comparative analysis of French and English child grammars * The acquisition of passives in Spanish and the question of A-chain maturation * Negation and functional projections in early grammar * Crosslinguistic evidence for functional projections in early child grammar, Language acquisition studies in generative grammar * CrossRef turns one * CrossRef: the reference linking backbone for scholarly electronic publication * Metadata demystified: A guide for publishers * Linking evolved: The future of online research. * Publishers joining forces through CrossRef * CrossRef and the research experience * CrossRef Search, Serials 17 (3) * CrossRef: beyond journal reference linking. * CROSSREF: From linking to cross-provider search * Mini-profile: a day in the life of a business development executive * CrossRef: Towards the future, with T. Kumagai * Key Issue: CrossCheck * Encyclopedia of Library and Information Sciences * Beyond mandate and repository, toward sustainable faculty self-archiving * Planning and Promoting the Creation of Scientific Knowledge: Three Perspectives * Faculty appointments and the record of scholarship * Point of View: Faculty Appointments and the Record of Scholarship * Credit where credit is due * Beyond authorship: attribution, contribution, collaboration, and credit * Publishing returns to the Academy * Report from the "What is Publishing?"(1) Workgroup * Demographics of scholarly publishing and communication professionalsGreco, Albert N., Robert M. Wharton, Amy Brand
“Demographics of scholarly publishing and communication professionals.”
Learned Publishing, 2016.

Personal life

Brand lives in Newton, Massachusetts, with her husband, Matthew Brand, and has three children.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Brand, Amy 1962 births Living people Barnard College alumni MIT School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences alumni Massachusetts Institute of Technology people People from the Upper West Side