ChemComm is publishing its 60th volume in 2024. Over the past 60 years, ChemComm has been the RSC’s most cited journal, and one of the most trusted venues for rapid publication of short communications. In our anniversary year, we recognise the important contributions ChemComm has made, and continues to make, in advancing the chemical sciences.
As part of our anniversary celebrations, we’ve brought together a collection featuring the latest research from some of our most loyal and dedicated authors. From those marking the beginning of their independent academic career by publishing their first article with us, to the rising stars and established leaders publishing in our yearly ‘Emerging Investigators’ and ‘Pioneering Investigators’ collections, this collection champions the contributions of our worldwide author community. We are proud many authors choose to support our journal by regularly publishing their best work with us. This collection also features papers from our ChemComm Emerging Investigator Lectureship winners, and our Outstanding Reviewer awardees, whose invaluable feedback has shaped our published content through the years.
To accompany the collection, we’ll be publishing interviews with contributing authors where they provide further insight into their research and reflect on their journey with ChemComm.
Check out our interview with Tom Teets (University of Houston, USA) below!
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Tom Teets is originally from Amherst, OH, and earned his B.S. in Chemistry from Case Western Reserve University in 2007, doing undergraduate research with Prof. Thomas Gray. He earned his Ph.D. in Inorganic Chemistry from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2012, working with Prof. Dan Nocera and supported by a fellowship from the Hertz Foundation. He was a postdoctoral scholar at California Institute of Technology from 2012 to 2014, advised by Prof. John Bercaw. In 2014, he started as an Assistant Professor of Chemistry at the University of Houston and was promoted to Associate Professor in 2020 and Professor in 2024. His research group works in the areas of synthetic organometallic chemistry and photochemistry, emphasizing phosphorescent metal complexes for optoelectronic applications, photosensitizers for photoredox catalysis, and supramolecular structures for sensing and nonlinear optics. He has received several university, national, and international recognitions for his contributions to research, teaching, and undergraduate mentorship, including a National Science Foundation CAREER Award in 2019. |
What is your favourite thing about ChemComm?
It seems to be a journal that is really engaged in the chemistry community, effectively bringing together chemists and celebrating the field. For example, as a graduate student I was lead author on two Chem. Commun. articles – the first was for a themed collection called “Hydrogen”, and the second was part of the “Highlights in Chemistry” collection that celebrated the International Year of Chemistry in 2011. More recently, I was fortunate enough to contribute to the “Emerging Investigator” issue, an issue I look forward to each year to get introduced to the new talent in the field. ChemComm is a great journal in its own right, but these extra initiatives the journal does to highlight researchers and their work really stand out to me.
How would you describe the peer review process and interaction with the editorial team at ChemComm?
Everything is fast and efficient, which I love. Obviously no one will be happy with peer review comments 100% of the time, but ChemComm does a good job of identifying subject-area experts to review papers, despite the breadth of chemistry the journal covers. I also appreciate ChemComm’s recent directive to reviewers to refrain from suggesting new experiments unless they are absolutely critical for one of the key claims of the paper. I think this will help reduce unnecessary gatekeeping during the peer review process and ensure timely publication of communications.
Could you provide a brief summary of your recent ChemComm publication?
This publication described a new class of ratiometric oxygen sensors that join phosphorescent cyclometalated iridium complexes with organic fluorophores. We have been involved in this area for over 5 years, and our previous designs all used monodentate linkers to join the iridium to the fluorophore, and in this work we introduced bidentate salicylaldimine linkers. We hypothesized this would improve the phosphorescence quantum yield and the photostability of the sensors, and there is some evidence in this paper showing that to be true.
In your opinion, what are the next steps or potential areas of research that could build upon the findings in this paper?
As this research evolves in our group, we plan to take a more applied approach. We have learned a lot about the fundamentals of ratiometric sensors, in terms of how to easily synthesize them and how to control the photophysical properties that dictate the key sensing metrics. We would like to investigate strategies to prepare solid films of these sensors for oxygen sensing at the air-solid interface, and also look at ways to impart water solubility for aqueous and/or biological oxygen sensing.
Be sure to read Tom’s article, “Dual-emitting cyclometalated Ir(iii) complexes with salicylaldimine-bound fluorophores for ratiometric oxygen sensing” to learn more!
