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 publish ...

, 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 Digital Science (or Digital Science & Research Solutions Ltd) is a technology company with its headquarters in London, United Kingdom. The company focuses on strategic investments into startup companies that support the research lifecycle. Histo ...

.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. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

, 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 Columbia ...

. She moved to

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

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

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

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 year ...

linguistics Linguistics is the science, 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 ...

from

. She graduated in 1989 with a PhD in cognitive science from the

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

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 universitie ...

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 pu ...

. Her first position was as an acquisitions editor at

Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Taylor & Francis Group is an international company originating in England that publishes books and academic journals. Its parts include Taylor & Francis, Routledge, F1000 Research or Dovepress. It is a division of Informa plc, a United Ki ...

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 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 Director may refer to: Literature * ''Director'' (magazine), a British magazine * ''The Director'' (novel), a 1971 novel by Henry Denker * ''The Director'' (play), a 2000 play by Nancy Hasty Music * Director (band), an Irish rock band * ''D ...

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 w ...

.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 Program Manager is the shell of Windows 3.x and Windows NT 3.x operating systems. This shell exposed a task-oriented graphical user interface (GUI), consisting of ''icons'' ( shortcuts for programs) arranged into ''program groups''. It replaced ...

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 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 on ...

of North America at

.“Amy Brand."

. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Dec. 2016.

MIT Press directorship

After an extensive search led by a committee of both

MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the m ...

-affiliates and external academic publishing experts, Brand was named director of the

in July 2015.

Chris Bourg Chris Bourg is an American librarian, sociologist and former officer of the United States Army. She has been the director of Massachusetts Institute of Technology Libraries since 2015. Career and education Bourg graduated with a B.A. from Duke ...

, director of the

MIT Libraries The library system of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT Libraries) covers all five academic schools comprising the university. The print and multimedia collections of the MIT Libraries include more than 5 million items, with ov ...

, 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 20 ...

, Creative Commons, 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 chemical sciences". It was formed in 1980 from the amalgamation of the Chemical Society, the Royal Instit ...

, 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 Altmetric, or altmetric.com, is a data science company that tracks where published research is mentioned online, and provides tools and services to institutions, publishers, researchers, funders and other organisations to monitor this activity, c ...

, 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, 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