MASNA Memorial Fund to Offset Cost of Marine Aquarium Research

Listen to this article

In an effort to assist in making marine aquarium research freely available to all, Marine Aquarium Societies of North America (MASNA) has created The Dr. Junda Lin Memorial Fund for Publishing Open Access Marine Aquarium Research.

The goal of the fund is to offset the cost to students of publishing research as open access articles in order to promote the spread of scientific ideas to not only scientists, but also to anyone who is interested in the research, by making it freely available.

Rather than in the traditional scientific publishing scheme, where the reader of the scientific article incurs a cost to access the article, with open access articles, the article is available to the world for free, and the author is charged a fee when the article is accepted by the publisher.

Therefore, the Dr. Junda Lin Memorial Fund for Publishing Open Access Marine Aquarium Research is a fund sponsored by individuals, aquarium clubs, businesses and universities that provides students with a financial offset to the costs of publishing a scientific article as an open access article.

Dr. Junda Lin was a professor of biological sciences at the Florida Institute of Technology and the director of the Institute for Marine Research (IMR). Dr. Lin’s lab focused on the development of aquaculture technology for marine ornamental species to offset and replace wild collection. Dr. Lin’s lab studied the basic biological processes of several shellfish and fish species, evaluated their aquaculture potential, and developed cultivation technology.

Dr. Lin has mentored dozens of undergraduate and graduate students in the field of ornamental aquaculture, including many in the marine ornamental trade and MASNA. His legacy will live on through the people he has inspired.

MASNA welcomes donations from any organization or individual who shares the belief that advancements in science should be freely available to the general public. More information about the Dr. Junda Lin Memorial Fund, including the donation and application links can be found on the Fund’s webpage here: http://masna.org/masna-programs/memorial-publishing-fund/

MASNA is a non-profit organization composed of marine aquarium clubs, individual hobbyists and industry partners from North America and abroad, totaling several thousand individuals.
MASNA’s goals are to:

• Educate its members with online and published material, the MACNA conference and other sanctioned events,
  • Assist in forming and promoting the growth of clubs within the hobby while ensuring a sustainable future for the marine environment,
  • Support the efforts to eliminate abuses in collecting and transporting marine organisms through education, assistance and encouragement,
  • Encourage the ethical growth of the marine aquarium hobby and support captive breeding/propagation efforts.

MASNA’s charter and additional information about MASNA can be found here: http://masna.org/aboutus/