Magdalena Skipper

Magdalena Skipper
Skipper speaking at Congreso Futuro in 2019
EducationUniversity of Nottingham (BSc)
University of Cambridge (PhD)
Scientific career
WorkplacesNature
Springer Nature
Laboratory of Molecular Biology
University of Cambridge
Imperial Cancer Research Fund
ThesisPrimary sex determination mechanisms in Caenorhabditis elegans (1998)
Academic advisors
Jonathan Hodgkin

Magdalena Skipper is a British geneticist and editor-in-chief of the journal Nature. She previously served as an editor of Nature Reviews Genetics and the open access journal Nature Communications.

Education

Skipper obtained a bachelor's degree in genetics at the University of Nottingham. She completed her PhD in 1998 at the University of Cambridge, where she worked in Jonathan Hodgkin's lab investigating sex-determination systems in the nematode worm Caenorhabditis elegans. She is a member of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge.

Career and research

After completing her PhD she joined the Medical Research Council (MRC) Laboratory of Molecular Biology (LMB) at the University of Cambridge. She briefly worked as a postdoctoral fellow at the Imperial Cancer Research Fund, working on the notch signaling pathway of zebrafish in gut development.

Skipper joined Nature in 2001 as an associate editor for Nature Reviews Genetics. During her editorship she interviewed several high-profile scientists including Anne McLaren, Mario Capecchi and Oliver Smithies. In 2002 she was appointed chief editor of Nature Reviews Genetics, and was promoted to associate publisher in 2008. Skipper worked briefly as Director for Scientific Communications at the Altius Institute for Biomedical Sciences in Seattle.

In 2018 she worked with Nature and Estée Lauder Companies to launch a global award for women in science. She became the first woman editor-in-chief of Nature in its 150-year history in May 2018, when she succeeded Philip Campbell. She has stated that she intends to ensure that science is reproducible and robust, as well as doing more to support early-career researchers.

In 2019 the University of Nottingham, where she had taken her first degree, awarded her an honorary Doctor of Science.

Alongside her editorial work, Skipper has taken on a number of advisory and governance roles in the international research community. She sits on the external advisory board of the Centre for Personalised Medicine at the University of Oxford, and is a member of the Strategic Council for Research Excellence, Integrity, and Trust, a multi-stakeholder body convened by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine in 2021 to address the integrity, ethics and trustworthiness of the research enterprise. She has served on the International Science Council's Global Commission on Science Missions for Sustainability, and became a Foundation Fellow of the council in June 2022. In April 2025 she was appointed to the board of directors of the Geneva Science and Diplomacy Anticipator (GESDA), a Swiss foundation promoting science diplomacy, having contributed to its working groups since 2023.

References

  1. 1 2 Skipper, Magdalena (1998). Primary sex determination mechanisms in Caenorhabditis elegans. lib.cam.ac.uk (PhD thesis). University of Cambridge. OCLC 894603337. EThOS uk.bl.ethos.624901.
  2. ↑ "nature - About the Editors". Retrieved 11 February 2025.
  3. ↑ Skipper, Magdalena (2015). "The peopling of Britain". Nature Reviews Genetics. 16 (5): 256–257. doi:10.1038/nrg3938. ISSN 1471-0056. PMID 25824870. S2CID 30674163. Closed access icon
  4. ↑ Skipper, Magdalena (2015). "Strength in numbers in the low-frequency spectrum". Nature Reviews Genetics. 16 (11): 623. doi:10.1038/nrg4024. ISSN 1471-0056. PMID 26442638. Closed access icon
  5. 1 2 Magda Skipper's ORCID 0000-0001-8707-8369
  6. ↑ Skipper, Magdalena (7 November 2016). "Magdalena Skipper". force11.org. Archived from the original on 31 March 2019. Retrieved 3 May 2018.
  7. 1 2 3 4 Anon (2018). "Dr Magdalena Skipper appointed editor-in-chief at Nature". thebookseller.com. The Bookseller. Retrieved 3 May 2018.
  8. 1 2 "Magdalena Skipper - Careers in Science 2017: Academia and beyond Symposium". Careers in Science 2017: Academia and beyond Symposium. Retrieved 3 May 2018.
  9. ↑ Skipper, M.; Milne, C. A.; Hodgkin, J. (1999). "Genetic and molecular analysis of fox-1, a numerator element involved in Caenorhabditis elegans primary sex determination". Genetics. 151 (2): 617–631. doi:10.1093/genetics/151.2.617. PMC 1460491. PMID 9927456. Open access icon
  10. ↑ Codrops. "Prof. Magdalena Skipper". igmc-cegmr.org. Archived from the original on 4 May 2018. Retrieved 3 May 2018.
  11. ↑ Skipper, Magda (2007). "An Interview with Anne McLaren". Nature Reviews Genetics. 8 (6): 412. doi:10.1038/nrg2123. ISSN 1471-0056. PMID 17571324.
  12. ↑ Skipper, Magda (2005). "An Interview With Mario Capecchi". Nature Reviews Genetics. 6 (6): 434. doi:10.1038/nrg1647. ISSN 1471-0056. PMID 15934189. S2CID 31781543.
  13. ↑ Skipper, Magda (2005). "An Interview With Oliver Smithies". Nature Reviews Genetics. 6 (5): 350. doi:10.1038/nrg1627. ISSN 1471-0056. PMID 15880879.
  14. ↑ "ENCODE Project Telebriefing Participant Bios". National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI). Retrieved 3 May 2018.
  15. ↑ NCCR Chemical Biology (25 January 2018), Career discovery: Science publishing (Magdalena Skipper), retrieved 3 May 2018
  16. ↑ "Spotlight on women in science with 2 global awards". saudigazette.com.sa. 19 April 2018. Retrieved 3 May 2018.
  17. ↑ "Nature Research and The Estée Lauder Companies launch global awards to celebrate inspirations for women in science". springernature.com. Springer Nature. Retrieved 3 May 2018.
  18. 1 2 Else, Holly (2018). "Nature announces new editor-in-chief". Nature. doi:10.1038/d41586-018-05060-w. ISSN 0028-0836.
  19. ↑ "Glamour's New EIC Makes New Hires | People on the Move - Folio". Folio. 2 May 2018. Retrieved 3 May 2018.
  20. ↑ Skipper, Magdalena (2018). "A welcome from the new Nature editor". Nature. 559 (7712): 6. Bibcode:2018Natur.559....6S. doi:10.1038/d41586-018-05606-y. ISSN 0028-0836. PMID 29968844.
  21. ↑ "Leaders honoured in summer 2019 graduation ceremonies". Campus News. University of Nottingham. 11 July 2019. Retrieved 21 August 2026.
  22. ↑ "Honorary Graduates of the University of Nottingham" (PDF). University of Nottingham. November 2023. p. 9. Retrieved 21 August 2026.
  23. ↑ "Meet the team". Centre for Personalised Medicine, University of Oxford. Retrieved 21 August 2026.
  24. ↑ "The Strategic Council for Research Excellence, Integrity, and Trust". National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. Retrieved 21 August 2026.
  25. ↑ "Magdalena Skipper". International Science Council. Retrieved 21 August 2026.
  26. ↑ "Two renowned members of the international research community, a geneticist and an environmental physicist, join the GESDA Foundation" (PDF) (Press release). Geneva Science and Diplomacy Anticipator. 11 April 2025. Retrieved 21 August 2026.
  27. ↑ "Governance & Team". Geneva Science and Diplomacy Anticipator. Retrieved 21 August 2026.