Editor in Chief

Colorado Psychiatric; Lakewood (CO); Remote; USD 30,000 - 45,000; Full time

Job summary

AAHA seeks a senior editorial leader to guide JAAHA with strategic vision, scientific direction, and rigorous editorial standards. The role partners with AAHA staff to shape content, ethics, and long-term journal strategy, while managing a diverse editorial team and a robust peer-review system.

The position emphasizes transparency, timely decision-making, and collaboration across departments, with a remote work setup and occasional travel to AAHA events.

Qualifications

• DVM or equivalent veterinary degree required; advanced training and/or board certification preferred.
• Significant experience in clinical practice, academic medicine, research, or scholarly publishing.
• Prior editorial experience (editor-in-chief, associate editor, or similar role) strongly preferred.
• Demonstrated understanding of peer review, research methodology, and evidence-based medicine.
• Strong leadership, communication, and decision-making skills.

Responsibilities

• Provide strategic, scientific, and editorial direction for JAAHA.
• Oversee manuscript acceptance, revision, or rejection decisions.
• Recruit, appoint, and mentor section editors and peer reviewers.
• Ensure compliance with scientific integrity, authorship, conflicts of interest, and ethics standards.
• Solicit high-quality submissions and oversee special issues or themed sections.
• Collaborate with AAHA staff and editors, and communicate with authors and reviewers.
• Monitor editorial performance metrics and contribute to journal policies and operations.

Skills

Leadership

Strategic thinking

Communication

Decision making

Editorial judgment

Education

DVM or equivalent veterinary degree

Tools

Editorial Manager

ScholarOne

JAAHA platform

Job description

Key Responsibilities

Editorial leadership & strategy

Serves as the senior editorial leader for JAAHA, providing strategic, scientific, and editorial direction.

Works with AAHA staff to establish and oversee the journal's editorial vision, scope, and priorities, guiding content strategy to align with AAHA's mission and members' needs.

Identifies emerging trends and research areas relevant to clinical veterinary medicine, and collaborates with AAHA leadership on long-term journal strategy.

Manuscript oversight & peer review

Holds final authority over acceptance, revision, or rejection of submitted manuscripts.

Oversees a fair, timely, unbiased, and rigorous peer-review process, working with the managing editor to assign manuscripts to associate and section editors.

Resolves complex editorial decisions, disputes, and ethical concerns, with support from AAHA's legal team when necessary.

Editorial board management

Works with associate editors and the managing editor to recruit, appoint, and mentor section editors and peer reviewers.

Defines roles, expectations, and performance standards for the editorial team, and maintains regular communication with section editors.

Scientific & ethical standards

Ensures compliance with accepted standards for scientific integrity, authorship, conflicts of interest, and research ethics.

Addresses plagiarism, data integrity, duplicate publication, and other misconduct; works with AAHA staff on corrections, retractions, and expressions of concern.

Content development & special initiative's

Solicits high-quality submissions — reviews, clinical studies, case studies, and special-topic content — and oversees special issues or themed sections.

Develops new authors, recruits editors for new sections, and encourages contributions from diverse authors and perspectives.

Reviews AAHA Guidelines prior to publication and offers recommendations to the AAHA Director of Guidelines.

Collaboration & communication

Works closely with AAHA staff, the managing editor, and the associate editor; communicates effectively with authors, reviewers, and other stakeholders.

Serves as the public editorial voice of the journal when appropriate, and coordinates with the ABVP editor on submissions related to the American Board of Veterinary Practitioners.

Operational responsibilities

Monitors editorial performance metrics (submission volume, acceptance rates, turnaround times) and contributes to editorial policy and journal operations.

Participates in budgetary or resource discussions related to editorial functions and supports initiatives to grow the journal's visibility and impact.

Qualifications & Experience

DVM or equivalent veterinary degree required; advanced training and/or board certification preferred.

Significant experience in clinical practice, academic medicine, research, or scholarly publishing.

Prior editorial experience (editor-in-chief, associate editor, or similar role) strongly preferred.

Demonstrated understanding of peer review, research methodology, and evidence-based medicine.

Strong leadership, communication, and decision-making skills.

Familiarity with a manuscript management system (e.g., Editorial Manager, ScholarOne, or the platform JAAHA currently uses) preferred.

Willingness to disclose personal, financial, or professional conflicts of interest relevant to editorial decisions, consistent with AAHA's editorial conflict-of-interest policy.

Compensation, Time Commitment & Term

Compensation: $30,000–$45,000 per year, commensurate with experience, paid quarterly.

Time commitment: Estimated at roughly 0.2 FTE (approximately 8–10 hours/week).

Term: A renewable term, expected to be three years.

Start date: December 2026-January 2027.

Location & Reporting Structure

Location: Fully remote. Occasional travel to AAHA annual meeting may be requested.

Reports to: the AAHA CMO, with close working relationships with the JAAHA Associate Editor, Managing Editor, and AAHA editorial staff.

Editorial independence: Consistent with standard journal governance.

AAHA is an equal opportunity employer and welcomes applications from candidates of all backgrounds who meet the qualifications above.