Judging Panel
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For each Communications journal, a judging panel will be responsible for assessing longlisted candidates in the corresponding subject area of the journal and then selecting the recipients of the grants (up to 5 for each journal). Each judging panel will consist of both professional editors from the Communications journals and practising scientists who serve as Editorial Board Members at the journals.
Communications Biology panel
Dr Chiea Chuen Khor
Genome Institute of Singapore
Dr Khor studies on genetic susceptibility to common human diseases (with a special emphasis on ophthalmology) using genome-wide association studies, whole exome, and whole genome sequencing.
Dr Thulani Makhalanyane
University of Pretoria, South Africa
Prof Makhalanyane focuses primarily on fundamental questions in the field of microbial ecology, genomics, and microbial metabolic activity. Understanding microbial community dynamics in natural systems is a central goal of his research.
Dr Eliana Scemes
New York Medical College, USA
Dr Scemes studies intercellular communication via gap junctions and purinergic receptors during brain development and under neuro-inflammatory and degenerative conditions.
Dr Luke Grinham
Communications Biology
Dr Grinham is an Associate Editor at Nature Research. His background is in functional ecomorphology and evolution of facultative bipedality in archosaurs and lepidosaurs, as well as locomotor biomechanics of other vertebrate groups, including big cats and giraffes.
Dr Anam Akhtar
Communications Biology
Dr Akhtar is an Associate Editor at Nature Research. Before becoming an editor her research focussed on designing liposomal constructs for selective drug delivery.
Communications Chemistry panel
Dr François-Xavier Coudert
Institut de Recherche de Chimie Paris, France
Dr Coudert’s research focuses on the physical and chemical properties of porous materials, using multi-scale molecular simulations.
David Nelson
University of Strathclyde, UK
Dr Nelson studies the mechanisms and structure/reactivity relationships of a range of reactions that are deployed in synthetic organic chemistry, most of which are catalysed by well-defined transition metal complexes.
Dr Kristin Wustholz
William & Mary, USA
Dr Wustholz's research involves understanding the interfacial interactions and electron transfer properties of chromophores at semiconductor and metal interfaces for applications to solar energy conversion, super-resolution imaging, and art conservation.
Dr Teresa Ortner
Communications Chemistry
Dr Ortner is an Associate Editor at Nature Research. Before becoming an editor her research focused on photocatalysis and solid state chemistry. Teresa handles manuscripts in the areas of heterogeneous catalysis and physical and materials chemistry.
Dr Victoria Richards
Communications Chemistry
Dr Richards is a Chief Editor at Nature Research. She previously conducted research in the fields of metal-organic frameworks, surface self-assembly, molecular magnetism and main group chemistry. Victoria handles manuscripts spanning the areas of inorganic and materials chemistry.
Communications Earth & Environment panel
Dr Leiyi Chen
Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China
Dr Chen's research focus is soil carbon dynamics in terrestrial ecosystem, to provide the mechanistic understanding required for reliable prediction of global change impacts on soil carbon dynamics, and their likely feedbacks to the climate system.
Dr João Duarte
University of Lisbon, Portugal
Dr Duarte has worked in diverse geotectonic environments such as subduction zones, strike-slip plate boundaries, and rifted margins, as well as in outstanding topics such as the search for the source of the 1755 Great Lisbon Earthquake.
Dr Derya Gürer
University of Queensland, University of Tasmania, Australia
Dr Gürer’s research centers on tectonics and the evolution of Earth's lithosphere at various spatio-temporal scales, particularly relationships between orogenic/plate boundary events and far-field changes in plate motion, as well the long-standing enigma of subduction initiation.
Dr Joy Merwin Monteiro
Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, India
Dr Monteiro has broad interests in weather and climate phenomena, with a focus on understanding the fundamental physics that underlie these phenomena.
Dr Joseph Aslin
Communications Earth & Environment
Dr Aslin is an Associate Editor at Nature Research. Prior to becoming an editor, he studied the physical and chemical processes which influence deformation in mid-crustal fault and shear zones using a combination of field and laboratory techniques.
Communications Materials panel
Dr Andreja Benčan Golob
Jožef Stefan International Postgraduate School, Slovenia
Dr Benčan Golob studies the synthesis and characterisation of piezoelectric, ferroelectric and multiferroic oxide materials, focusing on structural investigations of various functional materials, with emphasis on environmentally friendly piezoelectric ceramic materials.
Dr Reinhard Maurer
University of Warwick, UK
Dr Maurer's research interests include non-thermal chemical dynamics at surfaces, molecular device design, and the development of machine learning and first-principles methods to study problems in heterogeneous catalysis and surface science.
Dr Jie Xu
Argonne National Lab, USA
Dr Xu focuses on engineering molecular packing structures under non-equilibrium state, with the aim of achieving organic materials with advanced properties for electronics.
Dr Aldo Isidori
Communications Materials
Dr Isidori is an Associate Editor at Nature Research. Prior to becoming an editor, he studied strongly correlated materials, such as transition metal and organic high temperature superconductors, quantum phase transitions, magnetic and topological order of matter, and superconducting heterostructures.
Dr John Plummer
Communications Materials
Dr Plummer is the Chief Editor of Communications Materials. Before his editorial career, his research focused on structure-mechanical property relationships in metals, glasses and ceramics.
Communications Physics panel
Dr Derya Baran
King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, Saudi Arabia
Prof Baran's research group (OMEGALAB) focuses on the engineering smart materials for organic electronic applications; in particular solar cells and thermoelectrics.
Dr Dario Bercioux
Donostia International Physics Center, Spain
Dr Bercioux's research interests include spintronics, carbon-based materials, topological matter, pseudo-spin-one systems, excitonic insulators, mesoscopic superconductivity, and electron/photon quantum simulators.
Dr Amin Doostmohammadi
Niels Bohr International Academy, Denmark
Dr Doostmohammadi leads the Active Intelligent Matter (AIM) group, conducting interdisciplinary research at the interface between physics, biology, and fluid mechanics.
Dr Arianna Bottinelli
Communications Physics
Dr Bottinelli is an Associate Editor at Nature Research. She has a background in theoretical physics and before becoming an editor she conducted research on complex networks and active matter.
Dr Daniel Payne
Communications Physics
Dr Payne is an Associate Editor at Nature Research. Before becoming an editor, he studied a number of strongly correlated condensed-matter systems, including superconducting and charge density wave materials.
