Welcome to Kerry Kroffe, AAS Director of Scholarly Publishing

The American Astronomical Society (AAS) is pleased to announce that Kerry Kroffe is serving as the Director of Scholarly Publishing for the organization as of 9 September 2024, following the recent retirement of AAS Chief Publishing Officer Julie Steffen.

In this role, Kerry will lead the publication of the AAS’s scholarly journals — including The Astronomical Journal (AJ), The Astrophysical Journal (ApJ), ApJ Letters, ApJ Supplements, The Planetary Science Journal, and Research Notes of the AAS — and reinvigorate the Society’s book publishing activities, including the AAS, Sky & Telescope, and Willmann-Bell imprints. In addition, Kerry will manage and oversee the Society’s publishing partnerships and work with the AAS’s volunteer leaders and key oversight committees to ensure our publishing efforts serve the broader astronomical community and are well positioned for future success.

Kerry succeeds Julie Steffen, who retired as the AAS’s Chief Publishing Officer in June 2024. Julie capped a substantial career in publishing by supporting the AAS’s journals over many decades, both at the AAS and previously at the University of Chicago Press. Under Julie’s direction, the AAS publishing program achieved significant growth and development: AAS produced an ebook line in partnership with the Institute of Physics (IOP) Publishing; the Society acquired the Willmann-Bell book imprint; the AAS scholarly journal portfolio grew from four titles to six; the Society launched AAS Nova, a source of astronomy research news summaries from the AAS journals; and the entire publishing portfolio transitioned to open access.

Kerry Kroffe comes to the Society with decades of experience managing multiple scholarly publishing enterprises. Kerry served as the Director of Editorial Services for the Public Library of Science (PLOS) from 2017 to 2019 and as Senior Editorial Manager for the journal PLOS ONE from 2014 to 2017. Before this, he served as Publisher for the AAS journals at IOP Publishing from 2007 to 2014 and in several roles working on the AAS titles at the University of Chicago Press from 2000 to 2007. Kerry entered the world of publishing as an Editorial Specialist at Matthew Bender, a division of LEXIS-NEXIS, in 1997.

Kerry is dedicated to nonprofit publishing for the advancement of science, open data and science, and centering the author experience in publishing. His values are well aligned with those of AAS Publishing and our efforts to provide a high-quality platform and support for authors to make their research freely accessible to the community.

The AAS warmly welcomes Kerry to the team and looks forward to the next era of AAS publishing growth and success with Kerry at the helm.