Journal of Materials Chemistry Blog

This year we are pleased to celebrate 10 years since Journal of Materials Chemistry was split into three respective journals: Journal of Materials Chemistry A, B and C, each focusing on a different aspect of materials chemistry. We are grateful to our fantastic community of authors, reviewers, Board members and readers and wanted to showcase just some of them in a series of ‘Community Spotlight’ blog articles.

Next in our ‘Community Spotlight’ series, we feature some more of our dedicated authors who have supported Journal of Materials Chemistry A, B or C by publishing regularly with us over the years. Check out their interview responses below to find out what they like about publishing with the Journal of Materials Chemistry family and how their work has evolved since their first JMC publication.

Professor Eli Zysman-Colman

Eli Zysman-Colman obtained his Ph.D. from McGill University in 2003 under the supervision of Prof. David N. Harpp as an FCAR scholar, conducting research in physical organic sulfur chemistry.  He then completed two postdoctoral fellowships, one in supramolecular chemistry with Prof. Jay Siegel at the Organic Chemistry Institute, University of Zurich as an FQRNT fellow and the other in inorganic materials chemistry with Prof. Stefan Bernhard at Princeton University as a PCCM fellow.  He joined the department of chemistry at the Université de Sherbrooke in Quebec, Canada as an assistant professor in 2007. In 2013, he moved to the University of St Andrews in St Andrews, UK, where he is presently Professor of Optoelectronic Materials, Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry and a past holder of a Royal Society Leverhulme Trust Senior Research Fellowship.  His research program focuses on the rational design of: (I) luminophores for energy-efficient visual displays and flat panel lighting based on organic light emitting diode (OLED) and light-emitting electrochemical cell (LEEC) device architectures; (II) sensing materials employed in electrochemiluminescence; and (III) photocatalyst developing for use in organic reactions.

How has your research evolved from your first Journal of Materials Chemistry C article to your most recent publication in the journal?

I published my first J. Mater. Chem. C paper a decade ago in 2013 (10.1039/C3TC31307G). At the time, my research group was strongly focussed on the development of blue-emissive cationic iridium(III) complexes for use in light-emitting electrochemical cells. This particular study illustrated our design strategy for using triazole-based ligands about the iridium centre. Since that first paper, my group’s research interests have evolved, where we now focus considerable energy on the design and development of organic thermally activated delayed fluorescence emitters for organic light-emitting diodes. In our latest publication in J. Mater. Chem. C (10.1039/D3TC02352D), my 16th in this journal, we studied the effect of nitrogen atom incorporation into orange-to-red donor-acceptor TADF emitters on their photo physical properties and their performance in OLEDs.

What made you decide to keep publishing your work with the journal over the past years?

I have found J. Mater. Chem. C to be the ideal journal to spotlight our work on photoactive materials design. The quality of the articles, complemented by an excellent editorial and reviewing process, I have always found to be excellent. I like to support RSC journals in general, given their mandate to benefit the wider chemistry community.

Professor Akon Higuchi

Akon Higuchi is an Advisory Board member for Journal of Materials Chemistry B. He received his PhD from Tokyo Institute of Technology in 1985. He was associate and full professor at Seikei University (Tokyo) until 2007. Since 2007, he became a Chair Professor at National Central University (Taiwan). He is also a visiting professor in Wenzhou Medical University. His current interests involve generation of universal human induced pluripotent stem cells, differentiation of human pluripotent stem cells on specific biomaterials, and preparation and application of lipid nanoparticles entrapped with mRNA. He is a fellow of Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC), American Institute for Medical & Biological Engineering (AIMBE) and Taiwan Chemical Engineering Society. He was awarded the Sofue Memorial Award (1994), Seikei Academic Award (2003), Nanotechnology Outstanding Contribution Award (NSC, 2013), Gold Medal Award of 2021 Taiwan Innotech Expo Invention Contest (2021), and Outstanding Scientific Award of Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine International Society, Asia Pacific region (TERMIS-AP, 2021).

What do you like most about Journal of Materials Chemistry B as a place to publish your latest materials chemistry research?

JMC B is one of the top journals in the fields of biomaterial science and chemistry. Editors and reviewers in JMC B are high quality researchers. Therefore, my manuscripts are evaluated very fairly. The comments by reviewers and editors are very useful for my future research.

What made you decide to keep publishing your work with the journal over the past years?

I had a great influence and an impact from my previous supervisor in England (Dr RFP Stepto, UMIST). He respected RSC. Therefore, it was my honor for me to publish my research in RSC journals starting from Faraday from my young carrier. Now my research mainly focuses on biomaterials and therefore, I keep publishing my research in JMC B.

Professor Tharamani Nagaiah

Tharamani C. Nagaiah is an Associate Professor and Head, Department of Chemistry at Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Ropar. She holds a PhD degree from Bangalore University and completed postdoctoral Fellowship at University of Saskatchewan, Canada and AvH postdoctoral fellowship at Ruhr University Bochum, Germany. Her research interests include design and development of various carbonaceous materials, nanomaterials, molecular catalyst with focus on energy conversion and storage, biosensors and in-depth fundamental analysis of the newly designed electrocatalysts towards fuel cells and batteries by various electrochemical, spectroscopic, microscopic and scanning probe techniques (SECM). She is a recipient of several prestigious fellowships like Alexander von Humboldt Postdoctoral Fellowship, Germany and Ramanujan Fellowship by Department of Science and Technology, Govt. of India. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC) admitted through the “Leaders in the field” scheme as an emerging talent in India and also an elected Fellow of Indian Chemical Society. She is a recipient of CRSI-Bronze Medal 2023 from the Chemical Research Society of India and Silver Medal of CRS 2023 from the society Chirantan Rasayan Sanstha, recently she has been awarded the ECSI Metrohm National Award 2023 from Electrochemical Society of India, A.V. Rama Rao prize for Women 2024 from Chemical Research Society of India. She is an Editorial Board Member of the Journal Electrocatalysis.

What made you decide to keep publishing your work with the journal over the past years?

I am very selective in submitting manuscript to  journals. Journal of Materials Chemistry A is one among them which publishes  high quality and cutting-edge research articles in the field of Materials Chemistry and Energy. Our work is well aligned with the scope of the journal and being published/publishing in Journal of Materials Chemistry A defines the quality of our work. Thanks to the referees for the constructive and valuable feedback on the work which has always helped us in shaping up the quality of our published articles.

Which of your Journal of Materials Chemistry A publications would you say you are most proud of and why?

I am proud of all my research articles published in Journal of Materials Chemistry A, since each article has a different concept and novelty. However, the work on “Nitrogen containing carbon spheres as an efficient electrocatalyst for oxygen reduction:Microelectrochemical investigation and visualization” is very special one. This work focused on the development of oxygen reduction reaction catalyst and its selectivity to H₂O conversion was studied in depth by microelectrochemical approach using ultra-micro-electrode. This is my first publication in Journal of Materials Chemistry A as an independent researcher. Therefore it is very special to me and I am very proud of this work.

Professor Jie Zheng

Jie Zheng is a Professor of Chemical, Biomolecular, and Corrosion Engineering at the University of Akron. He earned his PhD from the University of Washington in 2005 and subsequently conducted 2-years postgraduate studies at the National Cancer Institute, NIH. He then joined the University of Akron since 2007. His research lab specializes in the development of advanced bio-inspired, bio-functional, and bio-mimetic soft materials for engineering and biomedical applications by combining machine-learning models, molecular simulations, and bio-related experiments. Zheng has received prestigious accolades throughout his career, including the NSF CAREER Award (2010), 3M Non-Tenure Faculty Award (2008), and Anton Award from the National Resource for Biomedical Supercomputing (2010), and has also been recognized multiple times as Top 2% of researchers worldwide in the field of Chemical Engineering and was elected an fellow of Royal Society of Chemistry in 2023. Zheng is author of 280+ journal papers, with a total citation of 20000+ times and an h-index of 75.

What made you decide to keep publishing your work with the journal over the past years?

Over the years, my decision to continue publishing our work in the Journal of Materials Chemistry (JMC) has been driven by a series of significant milestones and a profound sense of belonging to the journal scientific community. It all began in 2014 when JMC expanded to three companion journals. We started on this journey by publishing our first paper in JMCB, which was chosen for the journal’s cover page, spotlighting our research on antifouling materials. Since then, we have published 31 papers in the JMC family, with 10 papers in JMCB, 6 invited reviews, 19 cover features, and 8 hot papers. These publications have predominantly focused on our research on amyloid diseases, smart hydrogels, and biomaterials. What truly sets JMC apart for me is the remarkable growth I have witnessed in our research journey alongside this journal. In 2017, I joined the Advisory Board of JMC B, where I have seen the journal commitment to accelerating scientific dissemination through a rigorous and equitable review process. Additionally, their dedication to recognizing and nurturing young, talented investigators is commendable. I strongly believe that the JMC family will persist as the flagship journals for disseminating high-impact research to the global scientific community.

How has your research evolved from your first Journal of Materials Chemistry B article to your most recent publication in the journal?

Our research has evolved significantly since our first publication in the Journal of Materials Chemistry B (DOI: 10.1039/c4tb00253a) in 2014, which focused on the binding properties of PEG antifouling materials and proteins, earning a place on the JMCB cover page. Subsequently, we expanded our research from antifouling materials to smart functional polymers and hydrogels. These materials were designed and synthesized to possess high mechanical properties and a wide range of functionalities, including self-recovery, self-healing, biocompatibility, mechanoresponse, freezing tolerance, conductivity, and interfacial adhesion, tailored for diverse applications. Moreover, our research has stretched even further, encompassing the investigation of native disease-related amyloid proteins linked to various neurodegenerative diseases. We combine a variety of biophysical techniques and computational approaches to examine the molecular mechanisms of protein misfolding, aggregation, and toxicity, design and discover novel molecules serving as amyloid inhibitors, develop multi-targeting biosensors for detecting amyloid proteins, and investigate the molecular links and spreading mechanisms between different diseases. Our findings have been published and highlighted in the JMC journal family, a testament to the growth and evolution of both our research and the JMC journal community.

Professor Paolo Samorì 

Prof. Paolo Samorì is Distinguished Professor at the Université de Strasbourg, Director of the Institut de Science et d’Ingénierie Supramoléculaires (ISIS) and Director of the Nanochemistry Laboratory and he is Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC). He has obtained a Laurea (master’s degree) in Industrial Chemistry at University of Bologna in 1995. In 2000, he has received his PhD in Chemistry from the Humboldt University of Berlin (Prof. J. P. Rabe). He has been permanent research scientist at Istituto per la Sintesi Organica e la Fotoreattività of the Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche of Bologna from 2001 to 2008 and Visiting Professor at ISIS from 2003 to 2008. He has published 440+ papers on nanochemistry, supramolecular sciences, materials chemistry, and scanning probe microscopies with a specific focus on graphene and other 2D materials as well as functional organic/polymeric and hybrid nanomaterials for application in optoelectronics, energy and sensing.

What do you like most about Journal of Materials Chemistry C as a place to publish your latest materials chemistry research?

It is a perfect outlet where interdisciplinary works are published since it covers the broadest spectra from the making of innovative materials, to their multiscale characterization, to their application via the development of high-performance devices. By covering such a widest field of chemistry it has been instrumental to the interdisciplinary realm of materials science that has witnessed major steps forward during the last three decades.

How has your research evolved from your first Journal of Materials Chemistry C article to your most recent publication in the journal?

Materials chemistry has shaped itself over the years as a technologically relevant discipline by tackling the major challenge of enhancing the chemical and structural complexity of materials to reach more sophisticated and reliable functions. The chemical approach to materials science has indeed been key to trace such a relevant path.

Thank you to our dedicated authors for their support in publishing regularly with the Journal of Materials Chemistry family of journals over the years.

We hope you enjoyed finding out more about just some of our dedicated authors. Keep an eye out for our next ‘Community Spotlight’!

If you missed any of our previous ‘Community Spotlight’ blog posts, check them all out here.

This year we are pleased to celebrate 10 years since Journal of Materials Chemistry was split into three respective journals: Journal of Materials Chemistry A, B and C, each focusing on a different aspect of materials chemistry. We are grateful to our fantastic community of authors, reviewers, Board members and readers and wanted to showcase just some of them in a series of ‘Community Spotlight’ blog articles.

Next in our ‘Community Spotlight’ series, we feature some of our wonderful Editorial Board members who have supported Journal of Materials Chemistry A, B or C over the years through guiding the growth and development of the journal and/or actively handling papers in their Associate Editor roles. Check out their interview responses below to find out what they like about being on the Editorial Board and how they think the field of materials chemistry will develop in the next 10 years.

Professor Jessica Winter

Jessica Winter is an Associate Editor for Journal of Materials Chemistry B. She is a Distinguished Professor of Engineering in the William G. Lowrie Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and the Department of Biomedical Engineering and Past Chair of the Chemical Engineering Technical Operating Council (CTOC) of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE). She received her PhD in Chemical Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin in 2004, and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the Center for Innovative Visual Rehabilitation at the Boston VA Hospital in 2006. Her research interests include nanoparticles for cancer imaging, diagnostics, and drug delivery; and cell migration in the brain tumor microenvironment. She is a co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer of Core Quantum Technologies, a company commercializing nanoparticle reagents for cancer diagnostics. She was named TechColumbus Innovator of the Year, Columbus Business First 40 under 40, and Columbus Business First 20 People to Know in Technology. She has received the American Physical Society (APS) Five Sigma Award, American Chemical Society (ACS) Rising Star Award and the Engineering DesignNews Golden Mouse Trap Rising Star Award; she was named to Top 25 STEM professors in Ohio; and is a fellow of the AIChE, BMES, AAAS, AIMBE, the RSC, and senior member of the IEEE.

Where do you see the materials chemistry field in the next 10 years?

There has been a dramatic rise in a focus on sustainability in the last few years that will continue to grow. This includes syntheses derived from natural materials, syntheses that reduce energy use, and elimination of toxic solvents and catalysts. There is increasing interest in the materials life cycle. Can we make materials degradable, can we recycle materials, can we make them self-healing to improve their lifetime? I work in the nanotechnology field, and there is substantial interest in ecotoxicology. How do these materials affect plant and animal ecosystems that they might enter through run-off or waste disposal. How do these materials modulate gut and soil microbiomes? It is an exciting time to be working in materials chemistry as we think about how to realize new materials while minimizing their environmental impacts.

As an Associate Editor, do you have any top tips for authors preparing their manuscript?

The most important thing for authors to convey is the novelty of their work. Authors know their research better than anyone. Try to summarize the key findings and the impact of the work and include this in the cover letter, abstract, and conclusions. When possible, try to compare work to the current state of the art to provide context for the innovation.

Professor Achalkumar Ammathnadu Sudhakar

Achalkumar Ammathnadu Sudhakar is an Associate Editor for Journal of Materials Chemistry C. He is working as a full professor at the Department of Chemistry, IIT Guwahati from 2019, where he leads the Soft Matter Research Group. He is also associated with the Centre for Sustainable Polymers at IIT Guwahati. He received his PhD from Centre for Nano and Soft Matter Sciences (CeNS) Bengaluru. He worked as a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Centre for Molecular Nano Sciences, University of Leeds, UK (2007 to 2009) and at RIKEN Advanced Science Institute, Wakoshi, Japan (2009 to 2011), before joining IIT Guwahati. He has been the recipient of Indian Liquid Crystal Society Silver Medal 2019, CRS Silver medal 2023 for his research achievements. He has also been inducted as a Fellow of Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC) and Indian Chemical Society (FICS) in 2023. His research interests fall in the broad area of liquid crystals, supramolecular chemistry, green chemistry, functional polymers, organogels and self-assembled organic semiconductors. He has published around 90 papers and 3 patents. He has several invited articles and hot articles to his credit. He is also serving as a Dean of Outreach Education Program at IIT Guwahati to popularise science and maths among school children. He is the life member of Indian Liquid Crystal Society, Chemical Research Society and Society for Polymer Science in India.

What do you think of Journal of Materials Chemistry C as a place to publish impactful materials chemistry research?

My independent research career was started by publishing my first paper in Journal of Materials Chemistry C, which at that time gave a platform to showcase my research. From last 10 years, I am witnessing the continuous rise of the journal, which has become the best in business for material chemists.

Where do you see the materials chemistry field in the next 10 years?

Sky is the limit ! – Materials Chemistry is such a vibrant and creative field, where you will see the molecule to do function. Utilization of experience, intuition, limitations, usefulness, practicality, creativity, curiosity, serendipity and now artificial intelligence – all these make the journey itself so adventurous and rewarding to the mankind,  if the goal is reached, then it will be an icing on cake.

Professor Zhen Zhou

Zhen Zhou is an Associate Editor for Journal of Materials Chemistry A. He earned both his B.S. (in Applied Chemistry in 1994) and Ph.D. (in Inorganic Chemistry in 1999) degrees from Nankai University, China. He joined the faculty at Nankai University as a lecturer in 1999. Two years later, he began to work as a postdoctoral fellow in Nagoya University, Japan. In 2005, he returned to Nankai University as an associate professor and became a full professor in 2011. In 2021, he moved to Zhengzhou University, China as a Distinguished Professor, and he is now Dean of the School of Chemical Engineering. His main research interest lies in the integration of high-throughput computations, experiments and machine learning for energy storage and conversion.

What do you think of Journal of Materials Chemistry A as a place to publish impactful materials chemistry research?

Journal of Materials Chemistry A is a prestigious journal that publishes high quality studies across all fields of materials chemistry, with a focus on applications in energy and sustainability. I think that Journal of Materials Chemistry A is a great place to publish your impactful materials chemistry research, as it provides a wide exposure, recognition, and dissemination of your work. Nevertheless, it is also very selective and competitive, so you need to ensure that your research is novel, significant, and well-written to have a chance of acceptance. Despite being a general journal of materials chemistry, Journal of Materials Chemistry A welcomes submissions on theoretical work, computational simulations, and machine learning, and considers them equally.

Where do you see the materials chemistry field in the next 10 years?

Materials chemistry is a dynamic and interdisciplinary field. In the next 10 years, I think that materials chemistry will continue to grow and evolve, driven by the challenges and opportunities faced by mankind. For example, addressing global issues such as hunger, health, energy, climate change, and pollution by developing new materials for renewable energy, clean water, food security, disease diagnosis and treatment, waste management, and green chemistry.

Materials chemistry will also contribute to the advancement of digital technologies and smart devices by creating new materials for data storage, communication, computation, sensing, and display. And it will embrace new paradigms and methods for materials discovery and design, such as artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), computational simulations, and high-throughput screening. These tools will help accelerate the innovation process and optimize the performance and functionality of materials.

Materials chemistry will also foster more collaboration and integration across disciplines and sectors, such as physics, biology, engineering, medicine, and industry. This will lead to the emergence of new fields and applications of materials chemistry, such as biointerfaces, biomimetics, nanomedicine, smart textiles, and wearable devices.

Materials chemistry is a fascinating and exciting field that has a lot of potential to make a positive difference in the world.

Professor Yana Vaynzof

Prof. Dr. Yana Vaynzof is an Associate Editor for Journal of Materials Chemistry C. She is the Chair for Emerging Electronic Technologies at the Technical University of Dresden (Germany) and a Director at the Leibniz Institute for Solid State and Materials Research Dresden. She received a B.Sc. in Electrical Engineering from the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology (Israel) in 2006 and a M. Sc. In Electrical Engineering from Princeton University (USA) in 2008. In 2011, she received a Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Cambridge (UK). Yana was a postdoctoral research associate at the Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge (UK) and an assistant professor at Heidelberg University (Germany) from 2014 to 2019. Yana Vaynzof is the recipient of a number of fellowships and awards, including the ERC Starting Grant, ERC Consolidator Grant, Gordon Wu Fellowship, Henry Kressel Fellowship, Fulbright-Cottrell Award and the Walter Kalkhof-Rose Memorial Prize. Her research interests lie in the field of emerging photovoltaics focusing on the study of material and device physics of organic, quantum dot and perovskite solar cells.

What do you like most about being on the Editorial Board for Journal of Materials Chemistry C?

One of the things I like most is the opportunity to stay connected to excellent science in topics that do not directly fall into my own research activities. It allows me to see where the field of materials chemistry is evolving and how adjacent fields are developing.

 Where do you see the materials chemistry field in the next 10 years?

Progress in materials chemistry is instrumental to tackling global challenges such as climate change. I believe that in the next decade the focus of the materials chemistry field will shift more and more towards the holistic inclusion of sustainability considerations into the design, synthesis, processing and end-of-life of materials. These could range from the development of new concepts in green chemistry to new approaches to materials reuse and recycling and much more.

As an Associate Editor, do you have any top tips for authors preparing their manuscript?

My top recommendation to authors preparing their manuscript for submission to JMC C is to read articles already published in the journal in order to gain better insights into its scope, impact and style. This will also help you realise how to present your findings in a scholarly way, how to make good and informative figures as well as correctly choose the title for your manuscript.

Professor Claus Feldmann

Claus Feldmann is an Editorial Board member of Journal of Materials Chemistry B. He studied chemistry (University of Bonn) and did his doctorate in solid-state chemistry under Martin Jansen. After post-doctoral studies with Hans-Georg von Schnering (Max Planck Institute of Solid-State Research, Stuttgart), he moved to industry (Philips Research Laboratories, Aachen/Eindhoven), where he was engaged in luminescent materials. Simultaneously, he habilitated at the RWTH Aachen on nanomaterials. In 2003, he was appointed at the University of Karlsruhe, the present Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). His research interests address solid-state chemistry and functional nanomaterials, ranging from ionic-liquid-based syntheses via base-metal nanoparticles and hollow nanospheres to nanocarriers for multimodal imaging and drug delivery.

What do you like most about being on the Editorial Board for Journal of Materials Chemistry B?

As a member of the Editorial Board for Journal of Materials Chemistry B, I am fascinated by the variety of publications in the interdisciplinary area between materials and biomedical properties. It is incredible how precisely materials and material properties can be tuned today (compared to 10 years ago) and yet the complexity of human action is still orders of magnitude less than what nature has produced in biology. For me as a scientist, there is still so much to be learned.

Could you provide a brief summary of your most recent Journal of Materials Chemistry B publication?

In oncology, nanocarriers can be expected to make significant progress in achieving high efficacy at the tumour site with low side effects, avoiding drug resistance, and targeting metastases early in addition to the primary tumour. Suitable nanocarriers should contain a drug load as high as possible. They should be biodegradable and – similar to current therapy schemes with dissolved drugs – a cocktail of chemotherapeutics should be applied also with nanocarriers. To this concern, we have developed the concept of inorganic-organic hybrid nanoparticles (IOH-NPs) together with partners in biology and medicine. IOH-NPs are predominately characterized by a synthesis in water, an uncomplex composition and an unprecedented drug load. In this regard, we recently presented theranostic IOH-NPs with a cocktail of chemotherapeutic and cytostatic drugs and a drug load of 71-82 % of the total nanocarrier mass. Cell tests with different tumour cell lines, spheroids and 3D cell cultures prove efficient drug release, high efficacy and a strong synergistic effect of the drug cocktail.

(M. Khorenko, A. Meschkov, J. Napp, J. Pfeifer, J. Stier, F. Alves, U. Schepers, C. Feldmann, J. Mater. Chem. B 2023, 11, 3635-3649)

Thank you to all of our dedicated Editorial Board members for their support of the Journal of Materials Chemistry family of journals over the years.

We hope you enjoyed finding out more about some of our Editorial Board members. Keep an eye out for our next ‘Community Spotlight’!

If you missed any of our previous ‘Community Spotlight’ blog posts, check them all out here.

This year we are pleased to celebrate 10 years since Journal of Materials Chemistry was split into three respective journals: Journal of Materials Chemistry A, B and C, each focusing on a different aspect of materials chemistry. We are grateful to our fantastic community of authors, reviewers, Board members and readers and wanted to showcase just some of them in a series of ‘Community Spotlight’ blog articles.

Next in our ‘Community Spotlight’ series, we feature some more of our outstanding peer reviewers who have gone above and beyond in supporting the quality, timely and rigorous peer review model for Journal of Materials Chemistry A, B or C over the years. Check out their interview responses below to find out how reviewing has helped in the preparation of their own manuscripts and to discover their top advice for new reviewers and authors.

Dr Sijie Chen

Dr. Sijie Chen received her BSc in Biology from Wuhan University in 2009 and PhD in Bioengineering from Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) in 2013, under the supervision of Prof Ben Zhong Tang. She worked as a Postdoctoral Fellow at HKUST and then as an Endeavour Fellow at the University of Melbourne and as a visiting scientist at Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research. She joined Prof Ana Teixeira’s group as a Postdoc in the Division of Biomaterials and Regenerative Medicine at the Department of Medical Biochemistry and Biophysics in Karolinska Institutet since late 2015. Dr. Chen was recruited as an Assistant Professor at Ming Wai Lau Centre for Reparative Medicine, Karolinska Institutet in 2017. She will be moving to the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) this year. Dr. Chen is working on fluorescent sensors and fluorescence imaging. Her current research interests focus on the development of new luminescent materials for mechanobiology studies and regenerative medicine studies.

What encouraged you to become a reviewer for Journal of Materials Chemistry B?

As a researcher who publishes papers every year, I usually receive feedback from 2-5 reviewers for each of my papers. I am grateful for the time and effort that reviewers invest in providing constructive suggestions, which help to improve the quality of our research and ensure that the scientific community runs smoothly. I also have some of my own papers published in the Journal of Materials Chemistry B, which has motivated me to contribute my own knowledge and experience to the journal as a reviewer. I am excited to have the opportunity to give back to the scientific community and contribute to the dissemination of high-quality research.

What would you recommend to new reviewers to ensure their report is helpful?

The primary goal of the review process is to provide authors with constructive feedback that can help them improve their work. When reviewing a manuscript, it is important to consider several key factors. These can include the significance and novelty of the work, the design of the project, the clarity of expression, and any errors that have been identified.In providing feedback, it is helpful to be as specific and detailed as possible. For instance, if you question the novelty of the work, you might provide references or examples to support your concerns. Similarly, if you identify language or writing issues, it can be useful to list specific examples or offer suggestions for improvement.

Dr Marcus Johns

Dr. Marcus Johns is an analytical materials scientist who focuses his research on developing new analytical techniques. These use light to directly investigate the intermolecular structures of polymers and the interparticle interactions of nanomaterials. This research direction emerged from his curiosity about the background fluorescence observed from bio-based scaffolds for tissue engineering. He completed his PhD at the Centre for Sustainable Chemical Technologies, University of Bath, UK in 2017 and is currently a Mitacs Accelerate postdoctoral research fellow in the Faculty of Forestry at the University of British Columbia, Canada. Marcus has been recognized as an outstanding reviewer for the Journal of Materials Chemistry B in both 2020 and 2021.

What would you recommend to new reviewers to ensure their report is helpful?

My top recommendation is to always provide constructive comments, regardless of your opinion on the manuscript’s quality. If you believe the paper needs significant revisions or should be rejected, explain your reasoning and suggest experiments or alternative theories for the authors to consider. Conversely, even if you initially think that the manuscript is flawless, there may still be areas that need clarification or references that the authors might have missed. Additionally, don’t hesitate to propose new research directions based on the manuscript’s results and your expertise, or ask questions that require further investigation (clarify that you don’t expect answers in the current manuscript). As reviewers, our role extends beyond ensuring scientific soundness; we also support researchers in developing new avenues of inquiry and expanding humanity’s knowledge.

Has being a reviewer affected how you approach the preparation of your recent manuscripts?

Yes, absolutely! First and foremost, I ensure that I prepare the manuscript to the highest possible standard before submission, even if it means taking an extra month. As a reviewer, it becomes challenging to focus solely on the scientific content when the manuscript’s structure is poor or important details are missing. The initial time invested in enhancing the manuscript’s quality is always less than going through multiple review rounds due to confusion or missing information. Similarly, I dedicate time to ensure that the supplementary information for the manuscript includes all relevant data, enabling readers to draw their own conclusions. As a reviewer, there’s nothing more frustrating than being unable to assess the reasonability of a conclusion due to incomplete data. Lastly, I’ve made an effort to educate myself on statistical analysis and ensure its correct application. I often encounter incorrect claims of significance as a reviewer, where the analysis has been repeated but not reproduced, for example.

Professor Jennifer Schaefer

Jennifer L. Schaefer is the Sheehan Family Collegiate Professor of Engineering and the Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion of the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the University of Notre Dame, USA. Her research group investigates materials chemistry phenomena relevant for sustainable technologies, including electrochemical energy storage devices. Prior to joining the University of Notre Dame in 2015, she was a National Research Council Postdoctoral Associate at the National Institute of Standards and Technology. She earned a PhD in chemical engineering at Cornell University, and prior degrees in chemistry and chemical engineering from Widener University.

What encouraged you to become a reviewer for Journal of Materials Chemistry A?

The peer-reviewed publication system requires both authors and reviewers. As leader of a research group that submits manuscripts, I feel that it is my duty to also review manuscripts. I strive to provide at least the number of manuscript reviews in a given year as a reviewer as I have received as an author. Being a reviewer for manuscripts for non-profit society journals is a way that I serve the global scientific community.

What would you recommend to new reviewers to ensure their report is helpful?

A helpful review considers both the big picture and the details. For manuscripts under review for Journal of Materials Chemistry A, I consider whether the report advances our knowledge of materials chemistry in the application of relevance in light of prior published work. I also look at the details of how the experiments were conducted and compare the displayed data with the claims in the discussion. When claims made in the manuscript do not align with the data presented, then it is constructive to explain in the review exactly what is not aligned. Specific feedback helps authors to more fully understand the reviewer’s perspective and to more quickly identify how to improve their manuscript.

Dr Uroš Lačnjevac

Dr Uroš Lačnjevac is a Full Research Professor at the Institute for Multidisciplinary Research, University of Belgrade, Serbia. He earned his BSc/MSc degree (2005) in electrochemistry from the Faculty of Technology and Metallurgy, University of Belgrade, and his PhD (2010) in energy conversion from the University of Belgrade. His research interests are related to the synthesis of nanostructured materials and composite coatings for electrocatalysis applications, with a focus on water electrolysis. He has published 3 international book chapters and more than 50 papers in peer-reviewed international journals. He has served as a referee for 70 scientific journals and completed more than 430 review reports. For his peer review work, he received the Outstanding Reviewer Award from Journal of Materials Chemistry A in 2019, 2021 and 2022.

What would you recommend to new reviewers to ensure their report is helpful?

As reviewers, your role is crucial as the bridge between the editor and the authors. It is essential to keep in mind that your responsibility extends in two directions. Firstly, you should assist the editor in making the best decision for the journal’s interests. Secondly, you should help the authors improve their manuscript, irrespective of whether your recommendation is to reject or accept it. When providing your report, strive to be constructive, specific, and comprehensive. This approach demonstrates respect for both the authors and the journal. Remember to maintain a polite tone while remaining firm and persistent in upholding high standards.

Has being a reviewer affected how you approach the preparation of your recent manuscripts?

Being a reviewer, particularly for esteemed journals like Journal of Materials Chemistry A, has had a transformative impact on my approach to manuscript preparation. It represents a pivotal moment for me, especially as I conduct scientific research in a country with its unique set of challenges. Witnessing how my comments, suggestions, and interpretations can significantly enhance the manuscripts of top research groups has instilled a newfound value in my own knowledge and experience. This realization serves as a powerful motivation, boosting my confidence to strive for success in publishing my own work in high-impact journals. Moreover, reviewing the work of other researchers has been a rich source of ideas, feedback, and insights that I now apply to my own projects and writing process. It has made me more mindful of certain aspects, such as clarity, organization, and addressing potential questions or concerns that reviewers may have. Furthermore, experiencing constructive criticism as a reviewer has deepened my appreciation for the importance of thorough revisions and ensuring the overall quality of my own work prior to submission.

Prof. Sheng-Heng Chung

Highly recommended Plan B!

Sheng-Heng Chung received his B.S. in Resource Engineering and Materials Science and Engineering from National Cheng Kung University and his M.S. in Materials Science and Engineering from National Tsing Hua University in Taiwan. He joined the Ph.D. program in Materials Science and Engineering and worked as a research associate with Professor Arumugam Manthiram at the University of Texas at Austin. Currently, he is an associate professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at National Cheng Kung University. His current research focuses on electrochemical conversion and storage technology.

What do you like most about being a reviewer for Journal of Materials Chemistry A?

I have been invited by more than 100 journals and thousands of peer review papers. The peer-review invitation from Journal of Materials Chemistry A always shows high-quality manuscripts with novelty, solid science, and great performance progresses. It is a very nice experience to support these high-standard manuscripts with detailed reviewing and data checking. Moreover, as a reviewer for Journal of Materials Chemistry A, I am always assigned with the papers in my research fields, which means that the authors’ manuscript would be reviewed and polished by researchers in the same and similar research filed. I believe this is important to improve the quality of publications and to help authors.

What encouraged you to become a reviewer for Journal of Materials Chemistry A?

It was a chance that I received a reviewer comment from Journal of Materials Chemistry A, in which the reviewer encourages me to revise my paper with specific suggestions rather than subjective questioning. This encourages me to optimize my reviewer report to a summary with a specific general comment followed by detailed comments supported by my suggestion to address the comment or make improvements. In other words, borrowing from a previous reviewer from Journal of Materials Chemistry A, I believe that the role of a reviewer is to improve the quality of the journal’s publication by offering constructive suggestions for high-level research.

Dr Jianxun Ding

Dr. Jianxun Ding is a professor at Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CIAC, CAS), P. R. China. Dr. Ding received his B.S. degree from University of Science and Technology of China in 2007 and obtained his Ph.D. at CIAC, CAS, in 2013 under the supervision of Dr. Xuesi Chen. From 2017 to 2019, Dr. Ding worked as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow with Dr. Omid C. Farokhzad and Dr. Jinjun Shi from Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School. His research focuses on synthesizing biodegradable bioactive polymers, developing bioresponsive polymer platforms for controlled drug delivery, exploiting polymer-based adjuvants for immunotherapy, and preparing polymer scaffolds for regenerative medicine. Dr. Ding has published more than 150 academic articles in mainstream journals, including Advanced Materials, Angewandte Chemie International Edition, and so forth, with over 13,000 citations. Moreover, Dr. Ding has applied for over 70 patents in China, of which over 60 have been authorized. Meanwhile, owing to his significant accomplishments, Dr. Ding has won more than 10 awards, such as the Natural Science Award of Jilin Province, the Science and Technology Progress Award of Jilin Province, the Chinese Chemical Society Polymer Young Scholar Award, and Young Scholar Award of Jilin Province

What do you like most about being a reviewer for Journal of Materials Chemistry B?

Ever since I served as a reviewer for Journal of Materials Chemistry B, what impresses me most is the accuracy and efficiency with which the Editorial Office executes manuscript decisions. What’s more, it offers me the opportunity to assist authors in advancing the publication of excellent, valuable studies while also giving me the authority to eliminate research of low quality and lacking rigor or innovation. When you are personally involved in this process, you will be delighted and proud of the gradual growth of the journal.

Do you have any advice to first-time authors seeking publication in the journal?

A meaningful study should meet the following standards: 1) Innovation is the most critical issue. The authors should put forward a brand-new viewpoint based on their experimental data, which will make the reviewers pay more attention to the manuscript; 2) Journal of Materials Chemistry B is a representative materials chemistry journal in which the manuscript published should include the successful synthesis of materials and the application prospect brought by material property. This requires the authors to pay attention to the intersection of multidisciplinary during the research process, further enhancing the practical significance of this study; 3) By paying attention to the details, the authors should standardize all documents submitted with a uniformly high standard, including but not limited to the main text and supporting information.

What has been your biggest learning point from reviewing?

The reviewer looks at the manuscript from a completely different perspective from the authors. When reviewing a manuscript, readability will severely affect the reviewer’s attitude toward the manuscript, which is always overlooked in the writing process. In addition, reviewing the manuscript in related research fields inspires my insights and perspectives on the future research direction. Overall, becoming the reviewer of Journal of Materials Chemistry B is an excellent opportunity to examine myself, and this has undoubtedly increased my rigor in dealing with scientific problems and my sensitivity to identifying critical points during my daily research.

Thank you to all of our outstanding and dedicated reviewers for their support of the Journal of Materials Chemistry family of journals over the years.

We hope you enjoyed finding out more about some of our reviewers. Keep an eye out for our next ‘Community Spotlight’!

If you missed any of our previous ‘Community Spotlight’ blog posts, check them all out here.