About the Editors
Like the other Nature titles, Nature Astronomy has no external editorial board. Instead, all editorial decisions are made by a dedicated team of professional editors, with relevant research and editorial backgrounds.
Chief Editor: Paul Woods, PhD, Springer Nature, UK
Paul gained his PhD in astrophysics from UMIST/University of Manchester in 2005, having also completed a two-year studentship at the European Southern Observatory in Chile. He has since pursued research at NASA JPL, Pasadena; Jodrell Bank, University of Manchester; University College London and Queen’s University, Belfast. His principal interest has been interstellar chemistry and dust, studying observationally and theoretically the complex chemistries and mineralogies of hot cores, protoplanetary discs, AGB stars, proto-planetary and planetary nebulae. For Nature Astronomy, he primarily covers stars, the Galaxy and local galaxies, including transients such as fast radio bursts, gamma-ray bursts and tidal disruption events. Paul has been at Nature Astronomy since its launch, becoming Chief Editor in 2024, and is based in the London office.
Senior Editor: Morgan Hollis, PhD, Springer Nature, UK
Morgan joined the team in 2021, having previously been deputy press officer at the Royal Astronomical Society and an assistant editor at Monthly Notices of the RAS. He gained his PhD from University College London, working on the atmospheric characterisation of extrasolar planets, and his undergraduate degree in physics from the University of Warwick. The areas he covers for Nature Astronomy include extragalactic astronomy, theoretical astrophysics and cosmology, and his more general interests include geology and geophysics, atmospheric physics, the history of science, and the interfaces between science and the arts. Morgan is based in the London office.
morgan.hollis@springernature.com
Senior Editor: Luca Maltagliati, PhD, Springer Nature, UK
After working on solar physics at the Osservatorio Astrofisico di Arcetri (Firenze, Italy), Luca switched to planetary science for his doctorate on the Martian water cycle with Mars Express observations at the Max-Planck-Institut für Sonnensystemforschung, continuing this work as a postdoctoral fellow at the LATMOS laboratory (Guyancourt, France). Luca then conducted research on Titan’s atmosphere and surface with Cassini observations at the Observatoire de Paris and the Commissariat pour l’Énergie Atomique, before returning to the Observatoire de Paris to work on the Exoplanet.eu database of extrasolar planets. Luca’s main area of expertise is atmospheric physics and the climate of terrestrial planets, observed in remote sensing spectrometry. Luca has been at Nature Astronomy since its launch and is based in the London office.
The Research Cross-Journal Editorial Team supports the Nature-branded research journals, with a focus on handling primary research manuscripts.
The Reviews Cross-Journal Editorial Team handles Research Briefing articles for the Nature-branded research journals.
Alumni
Former Chief Editor: May Chiao (喬乃梅), PhD, Springer Nature, UK
May was Chief Editor of Nature Astronomy from its launch in 2016 until 2024. Prior to that, she was a Senior Editor for Nature Physics, with responsibility for its astrophysics content, and has previously been an editor for Nature and Nature Materials. After working in radio astronomy with the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope group in Canada, she went on to obtain her PhD in 1999 from McGill University, in low-temperature physics. She undertook postdoctoral research at the Cavendish Laboratory of the University of Cambridge and the Solid State Laboratory at ETH-Zürich, investigating fundamental properties of exotic magnets as well as superconductors and superfluids. May now works for Nature Reviews Physics and is based in the London office.
Former Senior Editor: Marios Karouzos, PhD, Springer Nature, UK
Marios came to us by way of Seoul National Unversity in South Korea, where he worked on active galactic nuclei. Previous to that, Marios undertook his doctoral research at the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Bonn, Germany. For his research, Marios has used ground and space telescopes to observe galaxies in wavelengths ranging from gamma-rays to the radio regime. His main area of expertise is the evolution of galaxies and supermassive black holes as potential regulators of their growth. Other interests include relativistic outflows, binary supermassive black holes and galactic environments. Marios now works in the Publishing team and is based in the London office.
Former Locum Associate Editor: Sayali Avachat, PhD, Springer Nature, USA
Sayali’s primary research interests include active galactic nuclei, fundamental physics and numerical modeling of extragalactic jets, black holes and quasars. After graduating with a PhD in Space Sciences from the Florida Institute of Technology in 2016, Sayali worked at the Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA, India) on developing astronomy education and outreach programs. She facilitated teachers’ training in astronomy education for college students. Most recently she worked for Maryland Science Center, Baltimore, on developing science programs for early childhood education. She has also been entrepreneurial in conducting STEM workshops for students and science writing for a variety of readers. Sayali was part of the team in 2023 and was based in the Washington DC office.
