Erin McKiernan is the Community Manager for the Open Funders Research Group (ORFG). In this role she works with existing and prospective ORFG members to better understand the tools and resources needed to develop, launch, and oversee open policies. Erin also helps develop ORFG programming, including analyzing existing funder policies to determine best practices, cohort clustering, and opportunities for information-sharing. She also engages with targeted funders to understand hurdles to policy adoption and appropriate tools to address these issues.

Erin is a neuroscientist who has been a professor in the Department of Physics, Biomedical Physics Program at the National Autonomous University of Mexico in Mexico City since 2015. Prior to that position, she was postdoc researcher at Wilfrid Laurier University in Canada.

She has a BA in psychology, and both a MS and PhD in physiological sciences all from the University of Arizona.

In her career, Erin has demonstrated a deep commitment to open scholarship. She has been active in SPARC’s OpenCon community and encourages other scientists to embrace open practices.