Students Find Opportunity and Community at the ‘Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine’

Aden Alemayhu and Charlotte Godfrey talk to each other a lot. Partly because they’re friends and both third-year PhD students in the Department of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry. And partly because they’re the editors-in-chief of the Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine (YJBM), the 98-year-old research journal entirely run by Yale graduate, medical, and professional students.

YJBM is the oldest active medical student publication in the United States, and it has published continuously since its first issue hit Yale School of Medicine (YSM) stands in October 1928. While the journal was initially more internally focused, publishing Yale student theses, it now showcases peer-reviewed research from authors mostly outside of Yale.

“Before I wanted to be a scientist, I wanted to be an editor of novels,” says Godfrey. As a college student, she worked on an undergraduate neuroscience journal and later went on to edit research fellows’ journal submissions while completing a postbaccalaureate at the National Institutes of Health. When looking for a graduate school, she wanted to find a place where she could retain an editorial role. “Obviously, I accepted Yale for many reasons, but YJBM was definitely a plus for me.”

Godfrey is serving her second year as editor-in-chief, and Alemayhu her first. That format—two editors-in-chief, one new, one a continuation from the previous year—is deliberate, instituting continuity and ensuring the full responsibility of the role doesn’t land on a single student who simultaneously has many other demands.

As editors-in-chief, Alemayhu and Godfrey manage an editorial board of 30-40 active members at a given time, comprising approximately 50% PhD students, 25% MD students, and 25% master’s degree students mostly from Yale School of Public Health. Students from Yale School of Nursing and the Department of History are also frequent collaborators.

Jeffrey Bender, MD, Robert I. Levy Professor of Medicine (Cardiovascular Medicine) at YSM, has served as the journal’s faculty advisor for 20 years. And he doesn’t hesitate to credit all of the journal’s success to the students behind it.

“The student editors are remarkable,” he says. “They’re dedicated. They’re enthusiastic. The journal is really done very professionally.”

YJBM publishes four open-access issues per year, and since 2013, they have each focused on a particular topic. Recent issues have centered on neurodevelopment and neurodegeneration, neglected tropical diseases and parasites, and the history of medicine. The June 2026 issue will highlight research on gene therapies and rare diseases. Anyone on the editorial board can propose an issue topic; the board then discusses all of the proposals and votes.

For each issue, two deputy editors lead production. Often, their research will align with the topic of that issue, but not always. They’ll work with several soliciting editors, who work on outreach to attract paper submissions, and several reviewing editors who usher papers through the peer review process.

Once an issue publishes, the journal team hosts colloquia with invited speakers from within and outside of Yale to speak on research related to the issue’s topic. They also produce two podcast episodes per issue in which they discuss the history of its topic and interview the deputy editors. The podcast also invites a scientist in the field to talk about their research, big questions they face, and the direction their field is headed.

Being part of this process has given those involved valuable insight into research publication, they say.

“It has helped me think a lot more about the way that I’m putting together my research when I get to the stage of writing a paper,” says Devin Juros, a second-year neuroscience PhD student and director of communications for the journal. Juros served as one of the deputy editors of the neurodevelopment and neurodegeneration issue, where he saw a lot of submissions that weren’t within his particular expertise. “You see a wide breadth of how people are structuring their manuscripts, and you see what’s working and what’s not. That’s helped me to think more about how to frame a manuscript to make it and its impact clear.”

For others, being involved with the journal has shown them the human side of academic publishing.

“When we submit papers as researchers, it can feel like sending the manuscript, our labor of love, into the void and hoping for the best,” says Haley Zhang, a second-year PhD student in the Computational Biology and Biomedical Informatics Program and outreach coordinator for YJBM. “But it feels good to know that there’s a team of editors and peer reviewers going through your manuscript, and that everything you write matters.”

Hayley Serpa is a second-year PhD student in the History of Science and Medicine Program, jointly hosted by Yale’s Department of History and YSM’s Section of the History of Medicine, which sets her apart from her editorial board peers in that she doesn’t publish scientific research of her own.

“But I’ve convinced people in my program to be involved in this because you learn about publishing and the labor that goes into it,” says Serpa, managing editor of YJBM. Her experience has also helped her learn to depersonalize herself from the decisions of publishers. “I’ve realized from being on this side of it that a lot of publication decisions are not always related to quality. Often, they have more to do with the fit, the issue topic, or the mission. Being within a publication team allows you to understand that publication is more than just ‘this is the best work.’”

For Elaine Yang, a medical student who has held several roles on the journal, including deputy editor of the neurodevelopment and neurodegeneration issue, work on YJBM is shaping her career.

“I started out as a member of the podcast team,” says Yang. “I was introduced to a radiation oncologist in my first interview, which is now what I think I want to do on the clinical side of things.”

Bender meets with the editors-in-chief a few times a year to brainstorm. In those conversations, the student leaders share innovative ideas for editorial changes, new events, and ways to improve the editorial board culture. Bender has seen a lot of changes to the journal during his involvement, and he gets animated recounting all of the improvements that have stemmed from editors.

“The editors-in-chief are vitally important to the journal,” he says. “They take it seriously. And it’s a big responsibility. We’ve had a series of editors-in-chief over the past 15 years who have really transformed the journal.”

Editors-in-chief during Bender’s time have reorganized the submission and article review process. They’ve cultivated an extensive list of potential peer reviewers to make outreach more efficient and streamlined. And they’ve launched the podcast and colloquia series.

“This is all creative stuff,” he says. “It’s all led to the fantastic end product of a highly professional journal issue.”

When he speaks to students considering joining the journal, he emphasizes what a great opportunity it is. “It’s an amazing educational opportunity because you don’t as a student typically get this level of insight into publishing,” says Bender. “But especially if you rise to a deputy editor position for an issue or to an editor-in-chief, those are profound leadership opportunities.”

Not all of the student editors knew about the journal before choosing Yale like Godfrey did. But for many, once they heard about it, YJBM offered experiences they were actively looking for. Zhang and Juros, like Godfrey, had worked on publications as undergraduates, and Alemayhu was involved in community-building and outreach events as a college student. Each of them wanted to continue that kind of work in some way as graduate students. Serpa’s interest piqued at the idea of being around other students in fields different than her own but relevant to her work.

“As someone who is trained as a historian and is thinking about science and STEM education, I was looking for a place to be able to talk to other students,” Serpa says. “Especially students in the sciences who are thinking about publication, audiences, how to disseminate their research, and science communication more broadly.”

Students in graduate or medical school are not known for having a ton of extra time. So choosing to dedicate a few hours a week to something outside of their research or studies indicates its importance.

“Aden and I often joke that we care way too much about the journal,” says Godfrey. “But I think it’s important to have things like this in graduate school that you’re passionate about. It can be very motivating.”

If the past few years at YJBM have had a theme, it might be “community.” Much of the journal’s leadership has focused on building community both within the journal and outside of it.

When Alemayhu joined the journal, she helped revive an outreach coordinator position that had been put on pause when COVID-19 emerged. She filled that role during her second year.

The outreach team, now led by Zhang, has two types of events. The first type is professional development gatherings for board members and Yale students. Earlier this year, the team organized a panel conversation featuring Yale faculty members who were editors for professional journals; they discussed scientific review and what editors wished authors knew.

The second includes their volunteer opportunities. In collaboration with Yale Pathways to Science, YJBM volunteers organize workshops for local high school students and undergraduates. Recurring workshop topics include how to read a scientific paper and how to do peer review.

“Those are such good skills to learn early on, especially if you’re interested in research and don’t really know what that entails,” says Zhang. “The workshops are really an effort to improve access to science and research and to give students exposure to that early on.”

Serpa, who has volunteered at some of the events, says the outreach work is exciting. “A lot of the skills that we’re taught we take as, oh we’ve trained for years to have these skills,” she says. “But learning how to share those skills is really important.”

The director of communications role is new this year, and Juros’ main goal in this position is to raise awareness about YJBM so more people can engage with the journal’s work. So far, new efforts have included promoting issues to Yale and the public, taking steps to ensure reviewers feel valued, and seeking out local conferences to further increase visibility.

For Godfrey and Alemayhu, building community within the journal is something both are proud of. Coming out of the pandemic, Godfrey says, there were few in-person opportunities for the team to see each other. Two years ago, when Godfrey served as editor-in-chief with Samantha Senevirante, MPH (now a Yale School of Public Health graduate), they prioritized improving editor satisfaction. Godfrey has continued that work with Alemayhu.

“Aden and I wanted to build a sense of community to improve both our editor retention and commitment,” Godfrey says. Previously, editors-in-chief had struggled with students who would agree to be an editor but failed to maintain their commitment when the time came to do the work. “And I think part of that had to do with everything being through email and not having any face-to-face time. It makes it easier to shrug someone off.”

Bringing people together and celebrating their work were major goals for Alemayhu and Godfrey. Part of that has been making sure the whole board knows both are there for them whenever needed. “We are aggressively available,” jokes Godfrey. “Aden and I are both the type of people where our inboxes are constantly 100% cleared, so we’re unlikely to miss things.”

“At any given moment, we like our team to know that we are available for any questions they have or anything they need us for,” says Alemayhu.

One change they’ve made is how they acknowledge issues once published. Godfrey says that moment used to feel anticlimactic. They would send an email announcing the issue, and that was all. Now deputy editors get a t-shirt with their issue’s cover on it, and they get to have an issue launch party with their editorial teams.

“We wanted to bring in these moments of appreciation,” says Godfrey.

And it has worked. Deputy editors are reporting that their teams are performing better, and editor retention is up. “When you foster that sense of community, you have very dedicated members who are both eager to help out and very communicative when they can’t,” says Alemayhu. “It has been really special to see the YJBM editorial board community blossom. Now everyone’s always catching up at the start of our meetings. It has become a very nice place where people can trust each other and work well together. And I think it shows in our output.”

Godfrey agrees.

“It’s such a connection. And it’s between people who likely would’ve never interacted otherwise. They’re from different departments, in different degree programs,” she says, “Having those connections across disciplines, I think it’s super cool.”