Seth Marder retires as Editorial Board Chair

As I step down from the role as Chair of the Editorial Board of Materials Horizons, I would like to take the opportunity to thank both the Royal Society of Chemistry team and the materials community for their support of Materials Horizons. When Liz Dunn and I first discussed proposing the creation of Materials Horizons to the Royal Society of Chemistry nearly a decade ago, we asked the questions, why does the world need another materials journal and if we create one, how will it be different? We set out some guiding principles for the creation of Materials Horizons and some distinguishing characteristics that we felt were important. Very specifically, Materials Horizons had the goal of providing the community with a multidisciplinary society-based journal that focuses broadly on the area of materials, accepting only top quality papers, with a very strong emphasis on new conceptual advances and where the articles are accessible to both experts and non-experts. We also committed to having a diverse Editorial Board, Scientific Advisory Board, and for the journal to educate younger scientists and actively seek their input. In this regard, I am particularly proud of the fact that we created Focus Articles that educate the community on important topics, where misconceptions may exist or where emerging ideas of importance can be explained clearly and succinctly, and we created a Community Board that is populated by senior graduate students, postdoctorals and assistant professors. These early-career researchers represent our future and by both tailoring content to help educate them and actively seek their guidance, I believe that we are, in our own small way, helping to invest in the future of our discipline and benefit from the valuable input. I am very grateful to have been given the opportunity to contribute to these activities in particular.

I am extremely pleased that Martina Stenzel will be assuming the role as Chair of the Editorial Board of Materials Horizons. I have had the pleasure of working with her and getting to know her over the past several years. She embodies the values to which I alluded earlier, is an extremely positive and fair individual, and as you will see has a vision that will take Materials Horizons to the next level. I would be remiss not to thank the various editors with whom I have worked over the years, most recently Michaela Muehlberg, each of whom have brought commitment and passion to their job, and who listened patiently to both my good and crazy ideas, presented their own and have been wonderful partners in every sense of the word. Finally, to you the community we seek to serve, thank you for embracing the journal and I strongly hope that you will continue to support the journal, and through your interaction with the entire team, help it continue to improve and grow.

Seth Marder

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