Chemical Science Blog

To further thank and recognise the support from our excellent reviewer community, we are highlighting reviewers who have provided exceptional support to the journal over the past year.

This month, we’ll be highlighting Professor Kevin Huang and Professor Fei Li. We asked our reviewers a few questions about what they enjoy about reviewing, and their thoughts on how to provide a useful review.

Professor Fei Li, Xi’an Jiaotong University (China). My present research interests are development and applications of various electroanalytical methods and techniques in biomedical engineering studies, including single-cell electrochemical analysis and point-of-care testing electrochemical biosensors.

Professor Kevin Huang, University of South Carolina (USA). My research is on electrochemical materials and devices.

What encouraged you to review for Chemical Science?

Professor Fei Li: The reputation, quality and broad areas of Chemical Science. 

Professor Kevin Huang: Desire to learn and judge new advancements in basic science.

What do you enjoy most about reviewing?

Professor Fei Li: The most up-to-date researches and the different ways that authors tell their stories. 

Professor Kevin Huang: Learning new knowledge and getting to know the most recent developments.

Do you have any advice to our readers seeking publication in Chemical Science on what makes a good paper?

Professor Kevin Huang: Focusing on presenting your own understanding on fundamental aspects of new discoveries.

What are you looking for in a paper that you can recommend for acceptance in Chemical Science?

Professor Fei Li: The novelty and uniqueness, the systematic and solid experiments, as well as the contribution to the corresponding research areas and even the whole chemistry field.

Tune in next month to meet our next group of #ChemSciReviewers!

If you want to learn more about how we support our reviewers, check out our Reviewer Hub.

Interested in joining our ever-growing reviewer community? Apply here now!

To further thank and recognise the support from our excellent reviewer community, we are highlighting reviewers who have provided exceptional support to the journal over the past year.

This month, we’ll be highlighting Professor Liliya Yatsunyk, Dr Hajime Kameo and Dr Amar Flood. We asked our reviewers a few questions about what they enjoy about reviewing, and their thoughts on how to provide a useful review.

Professor Liliya Yatsunyk, Swarthmore College (USA). Canonical DNA is well known as a carrier of genetic information. But non-canonical DNA structures that my lab investigates play functional roles in our bodies, regulating a variety of important biological processes, notably cancer and aging.

Dr Hajime Kameo, Osaka Prefecture University, Japan. My research focuses on contributing to the deepening of catalysis science based on the chemistry of organometallic complexes.

Dr Amar Flood, Indiana University (USA). Amar studies ion-driven assembly with an emphasis on what anions bring to the table for molecular recognition and self-assembly leading to responsive polymers and optical materials (called SMILES).

What encouraged you to review for Chemical Science?

Professor Liliya Yatsunyk: Being a reviewer is a great privilege as it gives me a chance to glimpse into the newest research findings. It also gives me an opportunity to shape this research with my careful feedback on the submitted work.

Dr Amar Flood: The journal attracts interesting chemistry-focussed research, and so the articles are fun and enjoyable to read and review.

Dr Hajime Kameo: Chemical Science is one of my favorite journals and makes a significant contribution to the chemical community. Its high quality is indicative of a rigorous and fair peer review process. I am honored to be a part of this process.

What do you enjoy most about reviewing?

Professor Liliya Yatsunyk: Learning new things, helping others to improve their work, and feeling part of the great community of scientists.

Dr Amar Flood: Helping the authors (and particularly the first author) to improve the quality of the science and its communication to the community

Dr Hajime Kameo: Aside from being able to contribute to the scientific community at a high level, the most enjoyable part is the opportunity to reaffirm my interest in chemistry by reading stories of cutting-edge, outstanding chemistry.

Do you have any advice to our readers seeking publication in Chemical Science on what makes a good paper?

Dr Hajime Kameo: The significance and value of the study are clearly demonstrated through concise text and attractive figures and tables.

Are there any steps that reviewers can undertake to improve the quality of their review?

Professor Liliya Yatsunyk: Do not stretch themselves thin with taking on too many papers to review or having other commitments. Also, as a reviewer, one needs to keep in mind that our task is not to criticize the authors or find mistakes, our task is to help authors improve their work – shape your review with that goal in mind. Focus on the big picture and major problems that you see with the review – word editing is not a reviewer’s job and it takes lots of time and potentially also detracts from delivering the useful message.

Tune in next month to meet our next group of #ChemSciReviewers!

If you want to learn more about how we support our reviewers, check out our Reviewer Hub.

Interested in joining our ever-growing reviewer community? Apply here now!

To further thank and recognise the support from our excellent reviewer community, we are highlighting reviewers who have provided exceptional support to the journal over the past year.

This month, we’ll be highlighting Professor Rose Cersonsky, Professor Christian Heinis and Professor Bing Yang. We asked our reviewers a few questions about what they enjoy about reviewing, and their thoughts on how to provide a useful review.

Professor Rose Cersonsky, University of Wisconsin – Madison. My group uses molecular simulation and machine learning to understand and design behavior in multiscale and complex materials systems. Additionally, we strive to provide high-quality, open-source software, including the python package scikit-matter, a scikit-learn-affiliated and compatible software suite focused on machine-learning methods with additional nuance in chemical science.

Professor Christian Heinis, Ecole Polytechnique Federal de Lausanne (EPFL). My laboratory is developing new methods for the creation of cyclic peptide-based therapeutics. In recent years, we have begun to address the long-standing goal of developing target-specific peptides that are membrane-permeable and/or orally available.

Professor Bing Yang, Jilin University. Bing is engaged in the research of organic optoelectronic functional materials, such as organic electroluminescent materials, supramolecular optoelectronic functional materials, stimulus-responsive smart materials, etc.

What encouraged you to review for Chemical Science?

Professor Rose Cersonsky: Generally, I find the science within Chemical Science to be high-quality, and enjoy the topic areas it covers. I aim to be a responsible scientific steward by reviewing, as it upholds the quality and rigor of our field.

Professor Christian Heinis: Chemical Science is a top chemistry journal and manuscripts tend to report new, innovative work that is a pleasure to read.

Professor Bing Yang: Chemical Science is my favorite journal, because it does a great job in terms of scientific taste and originality, so peer review process provides me with a valuable communication platform that I greatly appreciate.

What do you enjoy most about reviewing?

Professor Rose Cersonsky: I treat every review as if I’m speaking to the (likely) graduate student who wrote the paper, and try to highlight the aspects of the work that were well-done or interesting, while providing constructive feedback, even in the case of rejecting a paper, to improve the study or its impact.

Professor Bing Yang: I most enjoy reviewing the manuscripts that have a major breakthroughs in terms of innovation, uniqueness and subversion, which is a feeling of meeting each other too late.

What makes a paper truly stand out for you when reviewing a paper?

Professor Christian Heinis: Papers that report answers to important scientific questions or solutions to long-standing challenges. Papers also attract my attention if the work is particularly creative or unconventional, or if the results are unexpected.

Professor Bing Yang: The most important thing for a paper that truly stands out is its scientific novelty, including new discoveries, new structures, new principles, new concepts, new functions, and new methods, which are well supported by systematic experiments and reliable theories.

What are you looking for in a paper that you can recommend for acceptance in Chemical Science?

Professor Rose Cersonsky: I look for a paper that has something unique to say in the context of chemical science, wherein the authors have done due-diligence in their scientific arguments and reporting.

Did reviewing for Chemical Science affect how you approached preparation of your recent publication with us?

Professor Bing Yang: Yes, absolutely. Reviewers can use other people’s manuscripts as a “mirror” to reflect our own strengths and weaknesses.

How do you balance reviewing with your other activities?

Professor Christian Heinis: I commute from Bern to Lausanne and often read and review papers on the train. I then stop reviewing activities when I arrive at work or at home.

What has been your biggest learning point from reviewing?

Professor Rose Cersonsky: It’s not my job to fix everything in a paper — early on in reviewing, I would write 2-3 treatises noting every typo and place of improvement. Now, I try to provide holistic reviews that focus on the points of largest concern for the author.

Tune in next month to meet our next group of #ChemSciReviewers!

If you want to learn more about how we support our reviewers, check out our Reviewer Hub.

Interested in joining our ever-growing reviewer community? Apply here now!

To further thank and recognise the support from our excellent reviewer community, we are highlighting reviewers who have provided exceptional support to the journal over the past year.

This month, we’ll be highlighting Dr Arundhati Deshmukh, Dr Zhiliang Wang and Professor Biplab Maji. We asked our reviewers a few questions about what they enjoy about reviewing, and their thoughts on how to provide a useful review.

Dr Arundhati Deshmukh, Stanford University. My current research is related to the broad family of halide perovskites. I design new derivatives of the original perovskites structures, specifically layered perovskites that can emit broadband white-light through a complex excited state landscape.

Dr Zhiliang Wang, the University of Queensland. My research focuses on materials innovation and mechanism understanding in solar energy conversion, such as photoelectrocatalysis, photocatalysis and electrocatalysis.

Professor Biplab Maji, IISER Kolkata. My research focuses on developing diverse catalytic strategies using cheap and abundant resources for environmentally benign and economically sound catalytic transformations.

What encouraged you to review for Chemical Science?

Dr Zhiliang Wang: My first paper was published in Chemical Science. The high requirement and professional peer-review impress me a lot. The paper published in this journal has a high quality. The peer-review for Chemical Science gives me a good chance to get the very first taste of some potential eye-catching researches.

Dr Arundhati Deshmukh: I have always followed the journal for its interdisciplinary showcase, it’s a great way to get acquainted with interesting work outside of your sub-discipline. So, when I received a review request and the paper looked interesting to me, I didn’t even have to think twice.

What do you enjoy most about reviewing?

Professor Biplab Maji: What I particularly enjoy about reviewing manuscripts is the opportunity to engage with the latest research findings and contribute to advancing knowledge in the field.

Dr Zhiliang Wang: I enjoy the comments-reply very much because it provides a channel to have a critical communication about science. It is much like a scientific argument, during which it will deepen my understanding about the research topic.

Do you have any advice to our readers seeking publication in Chemical Science on what makes a good paper?

Professor Biplab Maji: First, ensure your work’s originality and clarity, and always try to get peer feedback from your colleagues, mentors, or collaborators before submitting your paper.

What are you looking for in a paper that you can recommend for acceptance in Chemical Science?

Dr Arundhati Deshmukh: I love seeing papers where fundamental chemistry or a chemical insight/principle is directly related to an impactful solution to current challenges or discovers a new and interesting phenomenon. Of course, it goes without saying that the work has to be sound and well-written, and the findings sufficiently substantiated.

Tune in next month to meet our next group of #ChemSciReviewers!

If you want to learn more about how we support our reviewers, check out our Reviewer Hub.

Interested in joining our ever-growing reviewer community? Apply here now!

To further thank and recognise the support from our excellent reviewer community, we are highlighting reviewers who have provided exceptional support to the journal over the past year.

This month, we’ll be highlighting Dr Zachariah Page, Professor Selvan Demir, and Professor Vicent Moliner. We asked our reviewers a few questions about what they enjoy about reviewing, and their thoughts on how to provide a useful review.

Dr Zachariah Page, University of Texas at Austin. Dr Page’s research group uses light as an energy source to rapidly and efficiently create next generation “smart” plastics that are more mechanically robust than existing materials.

Professor Selvan Demir, Michigan State University. Professor Demir’s research has a strong emphasis on organometallic rare earth metal and actinide chemistry to develop compounds that are relevant for the design of next generation single-molecule magnets and qubits, with potential applications in high-density information storage and quantum computing.

Professor Vicent Moliner, Jaume I University. Professor Moliner’s research interests are in theoretical studies of biological processes, particularly enzyme-catalyzed processes, by means of multiscale simulations. The major lines of research in his group are devoted to the design of artificial enzymes and the design of enzyme inhibitors.

What encouraged you to review for Chemical Science?

Dr Zachariah Page: Chemical Science is a premier journal that covers a wide breadth of cutting-edge chemistry research, including within the field of polymer science that is my area of expertise. Reviewing for this journal allows me to give back to the scientific community in a meaningful way.

Professor Selvan Demir: I consider reviewing a responsible and crucial service to the research community and I strive to provide authors with useful feedback based on my expertise. Personally, I truly appreciate receiving insightful comments on my articles.

Professor Vicent Moliner: Despite it taking a lot of our time, reviewing is part of our job as members of the scientific community. By the same token, we expect our manuscripts to be reviewed in a fair and professional manner by other colleagues.

What do you enjoy most about reviewing?

Dr Zachariah Page: It is always exciting to get a sneak peak of up and coming science before it has become publicly available, which reviewing allows for.

Professor Selvan Demir: I enjoy reading about new discoveries, extraordinary results, and inspiring concepts. Reviewing a paper allows me to delve into the new findings and thoroughly learn about them.

Professor Vicent Moliner: I always learn by reviewing high level manuscripts that are submitted to Chemical Science. In addition, the discussions established with the authors are usually debates of quality.

What makes a paper truly stand out for you when reviewing a paper?

Dr Zachariah Page: The papers that stand out the most to me are those where the figures clearly tell the story and when the results (e.g., metrics) are placed into context with state-of-the-art examples, either commercial or academic.

Did reviewing for Chemical Science affect how you approached preparation of your previous publications with us?

Professor Selvan Demir: For sure. I pay more attention to the accessibility of the paper to a broad readership. This ranges from implementing a clear language to providing sufficient scientific evidence for the reported science and drawn conclusions. Chemical Science is one of the leading journals last but not least because the papers are available to many scientists around the world through the Diamond Open Access which is yet another motivation to both review for and publish in this outstanding journal.

What are you looking for in a paper that you can recommend for acceptance in Chemical Science?

Professor Vicent Moliner: A real new contribution to the field, with relevant conclusions, originality, good practice, and reproducibility of the experimental/computational part.

Tune in next month to meet our next group of #ChemSciReviewers!

If you want to learn more about how we support our reviewers, check out our Reviewer Hub.

Interested in joining our ever-growing reviewer community? Apply here now!

To further thank and recognise the support from our excellent reviewer community, we are highlighting reviewers who have provided exceptional support to the journal over the past year.

This month, we’ll be highlighting Dr William Unsworth, Professor Kara Bren, Professor Grace Han and Professor David Harding. We asked our reviewers a few questions about what they enjoy about reviewing, and their thoughts on how to provide a useful review.

Dr William Unsworth, University of York. Dr William Unsworth focused on the development of new method in organic synthesis, with a particular focus on ring expansion reactions, large ring synthesis, spirocycle synthesis and biocatalysis.

Professor Kara Bren, University of Rochester. Professor Kara Bren’s group is developing systems for artificial photosynthesis. In particular, we focus on creating and studying biomolecular and bioinspired fuel-forming catalysts as well as biological modules for charge transfer.

Professor Grace Han, Brandeis University. Professor Grace Han’s research centers on the interaction of light with organic molecules including photoswitches in condensed phases with the goal of promoting sustainable solar energy storage and efficient industrial chemical recycling.

Professor David Harding, Suranaree University of Technology. Professor David Harding’s research is concerned with the design and discovery of molecular magnetic switches with applications in sensing and next generation data storage.

What encouraged you to review for Chemical Science?

Professor Grace Han: First off, I enjoy reading and publishing papers in Chemical Science because of its interdisciplinary nature and strong emphasis on novelty, so I also value contributing to the review process as a member of the community.

Professor Kara Bren: When I receive a paper well within my expertise, I am motivated to provide comments that I hope will yield the best possible final publication. I appreciate it when I get constructive comments on my manuscripts from reviewers, and I hope to provide the same to others.

Professor David Harding: Chemical Science publishes insightful studies and has a great reputation for robust, but fair peer review. As it’s Diamond Open Access this really helps those of us who work in developing countries to showcase our work.

Dr William Unsworth: I do my best to review papers for as many journals as I am able, as good peer review is so important across the sciences. Also, as a long term RSC member and elected member of the RSC Organic Community Committee, I always am especially happy to be invited to review for the RSC’s flagship journal!

What do you enjoy most about reviewing?

Professor Grace Han: Many times I get inspired by the cool ideas and techniques that are illustrated in the manuscripts, and I also have learned a lot by observing how professionally authors respond to the reviewers’ requests by improving the quality of their work.

Dr William Unsworth: Taking the time to read a paper in detail – something I find I have frustrating little time to do outside of reviewing. Having an early preview of exciting new results before they are published is nice too, and it can be very satisfying to see first hand the improvements made to papers as a result of the peer review process.

Professor David Harding: This might sound odd, but I’d say being helpful. I often read papers where there’s a good story there, but it’s hidden. I see it as my job to help the authors tell it, even if I end up recommending against publication in Chemical Science.

What are you looking for in a paper that you can recommend for acceptance in Chemical Science?

Professor Grace Han: I consider two main factors. (i) Novelty of the research work. (ii) Quality of the research work.

Dr William Unsworth: A good idea, that has been well executed and is well described. I also really value balance in a paper – I am far more likely to accept a paper in which the strengths AND limitations of the research are explained in a clear and open manner.

Do you have any advice to our readers seeking publication in Chemical Science on what makes a good paper?

Professor Grace Han: I believe that a good paper tells a story that is not only technically rigorous but also inspirational to readers from various backgrounds.

What makes a paper truly stand out for you when reviewing a paper?

Professor Kara Bren: My favorite papers report results that make me say, wow, how did we not think of that before? I especially appreciate work that yields important fundamental advances by taking a creative new approach.

Professor David Harding: The best papers are those that provide new directions in chemistry telling the story of the work in a clear and accessible manner. All too often authors, and reviewers, get lost in the technical details of the study, such that the key findings are lost.

How do you balance reviewing with your other activities?

Dr William Unsworth: With difficulty – the polite reminders sent by patient editorial staff when deadlines are approaching/have been missed certainly help!

What single piece of advice would you give to someone about to write their first review?

Professor Grace Han: I would suggest keeping an open mind when reviewing science that departs from a traditional approach or method. I believe that it is an important role of reviewers to promote innovations.

Did reviewing for Chemical Science affect how you approached preparation of your recent publication with us?

Professor David Harding: Absolutely! I’ve found that reviewing for the journal causes me to more critically assess what I write and ask questions like “Is the data convincing? Are there other interpretations? Is this the clearest way that I can say that?”

Tune in next month to meet our next group of #ChemSciReviewers!

If you want to learn more about how we support our reviewers, check out our Reviewer Hub.

Interested in joining our ever-growing reviewer community? Apply here now!