William Gunn

Dr. William Gunn is the Director of Scholarly Communications for Elsevier. Dr. Gunn attended Tulane University as a Louisiana Board of Regents Fellow, receiving his Ph.D in Biomedical Science from the Center for Gene Therapy at Tulane University in 2008. His research involved dissecting the molecular mechanism of bone metastasis in multiple myeloma. Frustrated with the inefficiencies of the modern research process, he left academia and established the biology program at Genalyte, a novel diagnostics startup. At Mendeley, he worked to make research more impactful and reproducible and now works at Elsevier on altmetrics, reproducibility, and open access. Online, he's known as @mrgunn. RESEARCH His work at Genalyte, a molecular diagnostics startup, involved developing protein, DNA, and small molecule assays on their novel high-throughput assay platform. He received his PhD from Tulane University, where he studied under Dr. Darwin Prockop at the Tulane Center for Gene Therapy. His dissertation is entitled "Investigating the Role of Human Multipotent Mesenchymal Stromal Cells in the Repair of Bone", in which he developed a model of multiple myeloma in mice and used it to test small molecule inhibitors of the interaction between multiple myeloma and bone precursor cells, promoting bone regeneration and repair of osteolytic lesions. His areas of expertise are bone biology, multiple myeloma, adult stem cells, and development of disease models. SCIENCE OUTREACH As Head of Academic Outreach for Mendeley, Dr. Gunn blends deep technical knowledge and industry insight with clear and effective communication skills. Dr. Gunn spends a good deal of time writing blog posts, essays, technical papers, presentations, and in general contributing to interesting conversations happening across academia and the tech community, but he also does things that don't fall under the traditional communication categories. He is recognized for his work in the fields of altmetrics and research reproducibility, writing code, analyzing data, and publishing papers as well as giving talks to scientific societies. Dr, Gunn co-directs the Reproducibility Initiative with Elizabeth Iorns and co-organizes Science Online Bay Area with colleagues from other tech companies in the area to bring together people who are doing interesting things that influence how science is carried out and communicated online. He is prolific on Twitter as @mrgunn and views social networks as the skeleton which supports the flesh and muscle of more substantial online and offiline interactions.