Outstanding referees

Here we acknowledge some of the outstanding referees that have reviewed for Communications Chemistry. This list is arranged by year of nomination, updated monthly, and all referees listed have consented to being named. 

While it is our opinion that these referees have gone above and beyond what is expected of a reviewer in terms of the value of their reports, the detail of their analysis, or the degree to which they have helped the authors improve their manuscripts prior to publication, we are no less grateful to the many more referees not named below. For every named referee there are countless more who have made similar contributions to the manuscripts which they reviewed. We are incredibly grateful to everyone that has taken the effort to review for us and has each contributed to the high quality of the papers published in Communications Chemistry.

2024

Dr. Alexander E.S. Van Driessche

Alexander E.S. Van DriesscheDr. Alexander E.S. Van Driessche's (IACT, Granada, Spain) research endeavours are focused on the fundamental aspects of crystallization processes in natural and engineered environments. In particular, he studies the (non)classical nucleation, growth and dissolution behaviour of a wide range of materials, including protein crystals, salt minerals, phyllosilicates and cementitious materials. 

Dr Kathrin H. Hopmann

Kathrin H. HopmannKathrin H. Hopmann is a professor in Computational Chemistry at UiT - The Arctic University of Norway. Her research focuses on the mechanistic analysis and design of organometallic catalysts, especially for hydrogenation and carboxylation reactions.
 

Dr Yu Xiang

Yu XiangDr. Yu Xiang is an associate professor at Department of Chemistry, Tsinghua University. His research focuses on chemical synthesis of artificial oligonucleotides for gene regulation and protein inhibition through the phosphorothioate chemistry.
 

2023

Dr Bethany Almeida

Dr. Bethany Almeida is an Assistant Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at Clarkson University. Her research interests focus on the design and synthesis of advanced biomaterials to control mesenchymal stem cell differentiation and immunomodulatory potential with an emphasis on elucidating the mechanisms by which the physicochemical properties of biomaterials affect these behaviors.

Dr Emmanuel Ren

Emmanuel RenEmmanuel Ren has successfully defended his PhD thesis at PSL university in Paris (2023). His PhD work focused on the development of computational tools to enable faster screening of nanoporous material databases for gas separation using new energy sampling or machine learning techniques.

Dr Ryo Mizuuchi

Dr. Mizuuchi’s research focuses on the origins and early evolution of life. His group demonstrates how molecules could give rise to the development of biological systems in test tubes by creating, characterizing, and evolving self-replicating systems and model protocells.

Dr. Elizabeth L. Bell

Dr. Elizabeth L. Bell is a Postdoctoral researcher at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in Colorado, USA. Her projects focus on discovering and engineering nylon and polyurethane depolymerizing enzymes.
 

Prof Hee Cheul Choi

Hee Cheul Choi headshotHee Cheul Choi is a Professor of Chemistry at POSTECH. His research focuses on the synthesis of device-applicable electronic materials, especially in 2D, such as twisted bilayer graphene and metal organic framework (MOF) and covalent organic framework (COF) films.
 

Dr Rachel O'Brien

Dr. O’Brien’s research focuses on indoor and outdoor air quality. Her group characterizes the complex organic mixtures found in aerosol particles and indoor surface films.

 

Dr Marvin Parasram

Marvin Parasram is an Assistant Professor of Chemistry at New York University. His research interest focuses on developing synthetic photochemistry protocols for the sustainable incorporation of medicinally relevant heteroatoms into organic systems.
 

Dr María Colín-García
 

Dr Colín-García's research interest focuses on prebiotic chemistry and the relevance of minerals in the associated processes. Her experiments include simulating geological environments in which minerals promote chemical reactions.
 

Dr Andrew “Bean” Getsoian

Dr. Getsoian’s research explores thermodynamics and structure-function relationships in energy storage materials, with a goal of enabling practical realization of long lived, low cost, high energy density batteries for automotive applications. His work is informed by past experience in catalysis for selective oxidation and emissions control.

Dr Clive Oliver
 

Dr Clive Oliver’s research focuses on the crystal engineering of new metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) with the aim of understanding how their structures relate to their sorption properties. In addition, his group synthesizes multi-component, supramolecular assemblies of organic bowl-shaped host molecules with aim of forming larger supramolecular host assemblies that may include smaller molecules.

Prof Jing Xie

Professor Xie’s group uses quantum chemistry and molecular dynamics simulation methods to model chemical reaction dynamics in the gas-phase and investigate the microsolvation effect and midrodroplet chemistry. The group is also interested in designing COF/MOF catalysts for small molecule activation and separation.

Dr Katarzyna Jarzembska

 

Dr Jarzembska’s research interests cover mainly structure-property relationships of photoactive materials including photoswitchable transition metal coordination compounds with ambidentate ligands and luminescent transition metal complexes prone to form metallophilic interactions. 

2022

Dr Mahdi Hesari

Dr Hesari’s interests focus on molecular electrochemistry, spectroscopy and nanoscopy of materials towards discovering their light emitting and absorbing properties. He employs electrogenerated chemiluminescent (ECL), single molecule fluorescence microscopy and nanoscale scanning electrochemical microscopy (nano–SECM) in both bulk and single–particle levels.

Professor Felipe Herrera

Dr Herrera's research focuses on fundamental theory and applications of quantum optics with molecules and molecular materials for controlling chemistry and chemical dynamics with optical and infrared cavities.

 

Dr Sandra Brünken

Dr Brünken’s research interests lie in the interdisciplinary field of laboratory astrophysics and astrochemistry. A current focus is on understanding formation and destruction processes of aromatic and prebiotic molecules using infrared free-electron laser spectroscopy.

 

Dr Mycah Uehling

Dr Mycah Uehling is interested in medicinal chemistry, and associated work focused on automation, reaction miniaturization, and high throughput experimentation. He is also broadly interested in organic chemistry method development, synthesis, and catalysis.


Professor Aiko Fukazawa

Professor Aiko Fukazawa develops π-conjugated systems for application as organic photo- and/or electro-functional materials. 

 

 

Dr Kamila Muchowska

Dr Muchowska's research interests include complex systems science and the emergence of biochemistry. She studies out-of-equilibrium reaction networks and the chemical evolution of cofactors.

 

 

Dr Yujie Chi

Dr Yujie Chi is a medical physicist interested in modeling fundamental processes behind ionizing radiation induced biological effects and developing irradiation facilities for in-vitro irradiation studies. 

 

Prof Oscar Ventura

Professor Ventura and his group use computational chemistry to treat problems of environmental chemistry, mainly in relation to the behavior of organosulfur and unsaturated species reacting with the most frequent atmospheric radicals (OH, Cl, etc). Additionally, the group works on halogenated chemical and biochemical compounds, employing density functional and high-level post-Hartree-Fock composite methods to determine the structural, thermochemical, and kinetic characteristics of such reaction systems.

Dr Jin Yu

Dr Yu's expertise encompass time-resolved research using optical pump-probe microscopy and X-ray transient absorption spectroscopy (XTAS). Her current research interest focuses on probing electron transfer dynamics of energy materials using synchrotron-based XTAS.


Prof Sameer Varma

Prof. Varma's group develops theoretical and computational methods for studying protein function and regulation. In collaboration with experimental groups, his group also applies molecular mechanics (MM), quantum mechanics (QM), and hybrid QM/MM methods to study protein-ion interactions, protein-protein interactions, protein-DNA interactions and allosteric signaling.

Dr Sara Mosca

Dr Mosca is a physicist who specialised in optical spectroscopy with a particular focus on Raman spectroscopy. Her current research involves developing a deep Raman (SORS and TRS) approach for in-vivo detection and localization of cancer lesions.

 

Dr Kerstin Göpfrich

Dr Göpfrich's research falls at the intersection of biophysics and synthetic biology. Her work puts DNA nanotechnology, microfluidics and 3D printing to use to build up a synthetic cell.

 

2021

Dr Claudia Contini

Dr Contini's research interests lie in bottom-up synthetic biology, focusing on the design of synthetic life-like systems that mimic biological properties and functions with high potential in biotechnological and biomedical applications.


Dr Virginie Chamard

Dr Chamard is a physicist specialised in the use of X-ray synchrotron radiation and the development of novel coherent diffraction imaging methods. Her recent research interest focuses on the understanding of biomineralisation using both biogenic systems and bio-inspired models.

 

Dr Rosa Adam Ortiz

Dr Adam Ortiz works in the development of new catalysts for making organic transformations more sustainable. Her research interests are focused in both homogeneous and heterogeneous catalysis applied to CO2 valorization, as well as hydrogenation and hydrogen transfer reactions.

Prof. Minh Tho Nguyen

Professor Nguyen and team explore the structures and reactivities of a variety of compounds - ranging from prebiotic molecules, to nanoclusters, to polymers - using computational quantum chemical methods.

 

Prof. Man Nin Chan

Prof. Chan studies study of chemical processes that occur at the surface of atmospheric aerosols, particularly investigating the transformation of organosulfur compounds and its implications on atmospheric aerosol sulfur cycle.

 

Dr. Marco Chino

Dr. Chino designs peptides and proteins from scratch, by means of computational tools and solid-phase synthesis. His artisanal proteins find application in oxidative catalysis, water splitting, photochemistry, as drugs, and active biomaterials for sensing devices.

 

Dr. Rocío Mercado

Dr. Rocío Mercado's research interests lie at the intersection of computational chemistry and artificial intelligence for molecular discovery, with a current focus on small molecule drug design using deep generative models.

 

Dr. Larissa K. S. von Krbek

Dr. Larissa K. S. von Krbek investigates out-of-equilibrium supramolecular systems, currently focusing on metallo-supramolecular complexes and cages whose self-organisation is activated by either chemical or photochemical stimuli.

 

Dr. Joyanta Choudhury

Dr Joyanta Choudhury works at the interface of organometallic chemistry, catalysis, energy and materials.He is especially interested in 'sustainable CO2 conversion' and 'switchable catalysis'.

 

Dr Augusto Batagin-Neto

Dr Batagin-Neto works with the molecular modelling of organic compounds, aiming towards their application in optoelectronic devices, photovoltaics, sensors, and biomaterials. His work seeks to understand the local reactivity, optoelectronic, biological and structural properties of the compounds via DFT, Hartree-Fock and molecular dynamics calculations.

Professor Maohong Fan

Professor Fan’s research interests include low or near-zero carbon-emission energy production, low-cost chemical and material syntheses, environmental protection, computation chemistry, life cycle analysis, and techno-economic assessment.

Professor Sarah (Sally) Price

Professor Price's group is concerned with modelling the intermolecular and intramolecular forces in organic molecules, such as pharmaceuticals, sufficiently realistically that they can be used for predicting the crystallization and solid state properties of the molecules.

 

2020

Professor Debora Berti

Professor Berti studies the physical chemistry of soft matter. Her current research interests include nanostructured assemblies and fluids, and microfluidic manipulation of natural and synthetic soft matter.

 

Dr Massimiliano Bonomi

Dr Bonomi develops and applies integrative computational and experimental approaches to study protein structure, dynamics, and function. These techniques are distributed in the open-source PLUMED software of which Dr Bonomi is a core developer.

 

Professor Barbara Cellini

Professor Cellini specializes in applying protein chemistry and cellular biochemistry approaches to unravelling the molecular mechanisms of rare diseases, as a starting point for the development of new therapeutic strategies.

 

Professor Scott Cockroft

The Cockroft group combine molecules of synthetic and biological origins to examine the physical organic chemistry underpinning molecular interactions and the operation of molecular machines.

 

Dr Avigail Landman

Dr Landman studies materials and processes for electrochemical energy conversion, focusing on renewable hydrogen production from water.

 

 

Professor Paolo Pescarmona

Professor Pescarmona conducts research on the rational design and development of catalytic materials for applications of academic, societal and industrial relevance, with a special focus on green chemistry.

 

Dr Anne Petitjean

Dr Petitjean’s group explores supramolecular approaches to biological questions. Current focuses involve the precise targeting of unusual nucleic acid structures by small molecules, and the design of smart drug delivery systems.

Professor Fernando Sigoli

Professor Sigoli specializes in the spectroscopy of complexes containing lanthanide ions, hierarchically structured nanoparticles, and metal nanoparticles, focusing on chemical and physical optical sensors.   

 

Professor Jenifer Shafer

Professor Shafer studies f-element separations chemistry with a particular focus on manipulating actinide covalency, long range solution structuring and difficult to access oxidation states.

 

Dr Laura Solt

The Solt lab applies chemical biology approaches to study nuclear receptor function in the immune system. The goals of the lab are to determine whether they can be viable therapeutic targets for the treatment of autoimmune diseases.

 

Dr Luke Townsend

Dr Townsend uses a range of laboratory and synchrotron techniques to investigate the environmental chemistry of radionuclides in engineered and natural environments.

 

Professor Xin Zhang

Professor Zhang develops chemical biology tools to visualize and regulate the process of aggregation and liquid-liquid phase separation of cellular proteins, a research program that combines expertise from synthetic chemistry, biochemistry and cell biology. 

 

2019

Professor Dave Adams

Professor Adams designs and studies self-assembled and supramolecular systems to form interesting structure materials.

Dr Valery Andrushchenko

Dr Andrushchenko specializes in applying experimental and theoretical spectroscopic methods to study the structure and function of biological molecules.

Dr Caitlyn Butler

Dr Caitlyn Butler conducts research on biofilms with applications in water and wastewater treatment. Her work seeks to understand microbial ecology and micro-scale function and structure to enhance treatment outcomes and resource recovery.

Dr Michael Lerch

Dr Lerch specialises in bio-inspired materials science and photocontrolled chemical tools to create systems with exciting and complex behaviours.

Dr Tianyi Ma

Dr Ma designs functional materials with inorganic, organic and hybrid frameworks for clean energy conversion and storage and environment remediation. 

Professor Lauren Marbella

Professor Marbella specialises in using solid-state NMR and MRI to identify structure-performance relationships in materials for energy storage and conversion.

Dr Anna McConnell

Dr McConnell specialises in supramolecular chemistry with a focus on the development of light-responsive and spin-crossover metal-organic cages

Dr Sudha Rajamani

Dr Rajamani studies the chemical origins of life—the possible sequence of events and reactions on early Earth that led to the emergence of life.

Professor Daeha Seo

Professor Seo uses nanoparticle probes and super-resolution optical microscopic/spectroscopic techniques to study protein/signaling dynamics at the single molecular level in live cells.

Dr George Whitehead

Dr Whitehead specialises in small molecule crystallography, using local source and synchrotron X-ray techniques for structure determination.

2018

Professor Xavier Barril

Professor Barril specialises in computational drug discovery, using in silico methods to characterise binding sites, and develops computational methods for medicinal chemistry.

Dr Fiona Brock

Dr Brock specialises in applying analytical techniques, including radiocarbon dating and micro-CT, to investigate archaeological, forensic, and environmental samples.

Dr Walter Drisdell

Dr Drisdell studies chemical mechanisms occuring at buried interfaces relevant for energy research, primarily using in situ and in operando synchrotron X-ray techniques.

Professor Aphrodite Kapurniotu

Professor Kapurniotu studies protein misfolding and interactions with polypeptides, with the goal of developing functional peptides for analytical and therapeutic applications in amyloid diseases.

Dr Theo Kurtén

Dr Kurtén uses computational methods to characterise reaction kinetics and mechanisms in atmospheric aerosols.

Dr Tina Nenoff

Dr Nenoff develops nanoporous frameworks for the detection, separation and capture of environmentally important gases and ions.

Dr Simon Pang

Dr Pang has a background in chemical engineering and focuses on the use of aminopolymer sorbents for carbon dioxide capture.

Dr Datong Song

Dr Song develops base metal complexes for small molecule activation and catalytic transformations, and designs MOFs for sensing and separation.

Professor Ulrich Steiner

Professor Steiner specialises in the photochemistry and spin chemistry of a range of organic, organometallic, and biomolecular systems.

Professor Palli Thordarson

Professor Thordarson specialises in supramolecular and systems chemistry, with a focus on functional, bio-inspired nanostructures.

Dr Francesca Toma

Dr Toma's interests lie in the synthesis and characterization of integrated material systems, to understand structure–activity relationships that enable the development of functional architectures for solar fuel production.

Dr William Uspal

Dr Uspal uses analytical and numerical methods to study emergent complex behavior in soft and active material systems.

Professor Evelyn Wang

Professor Wang develops nanostructured, energy efficient functional systems, with socially critical applications in solar energy, water harvesting and desalination, and thermal storage and management.

Dr Donghui Zhang

Dr Zhang develops functional and bioinspired polymers, with a range of potential applications from surfactants to drug delivery systems.

We highlight our nominated referees via our website, social media channels, and this list. If you want to nominate any of the referees that contributed to the peer review of your Communications Chemistry article please contact the journal.