# openEHR Specifications Editorial Committee (SEC) News

**Category:** [openEHR news](https://discourse.openehr.org/c/openehr-news/9)
**Created:** 2020-07-02 09:06 UTC
**Views:** 1495
**Replies:** 5
**URL:** https://discourse.openehr.org/t/openehr-specifications-editorial-committee-sec-news/837

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## Post #1 by @thomas.beale

In recent months we have made a number of new additions and changes to the openEHR SEC, the international  group that manages the [openEHR specifications](https://specifications.openehr.org), which we are very pleased to announce.

Our new members:
* [Pieter Bos](https://www.openehr.org/programs/specification/editorialcommittee#pieter-bos), [Nedap](https://www.openehr.org/community/industry_partners_detail/nedap-nv), Netherlands [April 2020]
* [Birger Haarbrandt](https://www.openehr.org/programs/specification/editorialcommittee#birger-haarbrandt), [HighMed Consortium](https://highmed.org/)/ [VitaGroup](https://www.vitagroup.ag), Germany [June 2020]

We have also created a SEC Experts Panel, an additional group that provides expertise to the SEC. This comprises:
* [Christian Chevalley](https://www.openehr.org/programs/specification/editorialcommittee#christian-chevalley) (previously in the SEC), original author of EtherCIS, [HighMed Consortium](https://highmed.org/); Thailand;
* [Heath Frankel](https://www.openehr.org/programs/specification/editorialcommittee#heath-frankel) (on SEC from Feb 2015 - Jul 2018), [Ocean Health Systems](https://www.openehr.org/community/industry_partners_detail/ocean-health-systems), Australia;
* [Jake Smolka](https://www.openehr.org/programs/specification/editorialcommittee#jake-smolka), [HighMed Consortium](https://highmed.org/), research associate, Germany;
* [Luis Marco-Ruiz](https://www.openehr.org/programs/specification/editorialcommittee#luis-marco-ruiz-phd), terminology and ontology expert, [Norwegian Centre for E-health Research](https://ehealthresearch.no/en/) and [HighMed Consortium](https://highmed.org/), Germany;

The SEC has elected [Sebastian Iancu](https://www.openehr.org/programs/specification/editorialcommittee#sebastian-iancu) ([Code24](https://www.openehr.org/community/industry_partners_detail/code24), Netherlands), a long-standing openEHR expert, as new SEC co-chair.

The SEC [governance process can be found here](https://www.openehr.org/programs/specification/governance).

The [full SEC group is visible here](https://www.openehr.org/programs/specification/editorialcommittee) and consists of 14 members (including 2 co-chairs) and 4 SEC Expert Panel members, from 12 countries. Today's membership represents immense expertise in the world of HIT and a great asset for openEHR.

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## Post #2 by @Seref

For those who do not know: Heath Frankel was/is the lead for implementation of most of Ocean's platform, Ocean's ex CTO and current general manager.

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## Post #3 by @heather.leslie

Great group of experts - absolutely in no doubt.

That established, the elephant in the room question: Are there no women with expertise enough to contribute in either group?

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## Post #4 by @thomas.beale

I was thinking about that, but we don't seem to have come across any. There's an interesting split of more M -> tech and more F -> clinical I have observed in (by now) numerous workplaces (same split in vastly different cultures), which presumably reflects some level of self-sorting by interest (even allowing for historical / cultural limitations on girls going into STEM). 

There are many psych studies about this kind of thing (e.g. why is teaching 72% women across the EU, and 96% for primary; similar studies in law and medicine showing self-selecting splits). I don't worry about it too much, as long as people get to do what makes them happy. Certainly in the SEC and the rest of openEHR, everything's on merit, so we only discriminate on the quality of the brain ;)

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## Post #5 by @Seref

I can only speak for Ocean: Chunlan Ma, who is probably one of the two most experienced people on the planet (the other being Heath) in terms of actual software development based on openEHR, who also happens to be the lead author of AQL, would have a thing  or two to teach to every member listed there. 

The thing is, she is one of the busiest people in Ocean, if not the busiest. I think thrice before pinging her. So to answer your question: Of course there are women with expertise to contribute but I suspect the lack of their existence is more of a result of their current workload than their lack of existence, at least that is the case for us in Ocean :slight_smile:

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## Post #6 by @thomas.beale

Chunlan is indeed a legend, maybe we should kidnap her for SEC duties ;)

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**Canonical:** https://discourse.openehr.org/t/openehr-specifications-editorial-committee-sec-news/837
**Original content:** https://discourse.openehr.org/t/openehr-specifications-editorial-committee-sec-news/837