Meet the Team: Sophie Wolthers, Director Publishing Relations
Welcome to a new series on the Scopus blog, featuring the Secondary Content Operations team. This team looks after the relationships with all third parties such as publishers, societies and funding agencies whose content is included in Scopus, Engineering Village and other multi-publisher platforms.
Name: Sophie Wolthers
Job title: Director Publishing Relations
Can you tell us a bit about yourself?
Although Dutch by birth, the first 21 years of my life were spent living in many different parts of the world. I consider this exposure to different cultures as one of the most enriching experiences of my life and one that has fundamentally shaped me to see us all as global citizens of the world.
When did you join Elsevier?
January 2001 and being immersed in such an environment of incredibly driven and dedicated individuals has been inspirational.
What do you love most about your job?
Building relationships across organisations and fostering connectivity to support the Elsevier mission to help researchers and healthcare professionals respond to the challenges of our time and make lasting progress for society.
What’s the last book you read?
Rutger Bregman’s Humankind: A Hopeful History which gives a wonderful fresh perspective on the nature of humankind and shows the possibilities for a better future.
What was your favorite subject in school?
Teachers really can make all the difference and my English teacher was instrumental in inspiring me to go on and study English Literature
What’s the most exciting part of your job?
Delighting our content providers and customers by helping to make content discoverable to the wider world of research.
What keeps you awake at night?
The challenging behaviour of my 2 teenagers!
What’s the most interesting thing you’ve learned this week?
- The youngest Nobel Laureate in history is female. At the age of 17, Malala Yousafzai and Kailash Satyarthi were awarded the joint 2014 Nobel Peace Prize “for their struggle against the suppression of children and young people and for the right of all children to education.”
- Pink the colour is the youngest of the meanings of “pink,” even though by now it has eclipsed all other terms and become the default. It was named after the flower pink because its petals have a jagged edge, and back then, “pinking” referred to making an edge of this kind (which survives in the term “pinking shears” which are jagged scissors used to cut fabric so the weave will not unravel).