Adam Brotchie

During my studies, I also had the remarkable opportunity to put my training in analytical techniques into practice in Antarctica over the course of one summer…

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I obtained both my undergraduate and postgraduate degrees from the University of Melbourne. At undergraduate level, I studied a BSc, majoring in Chemistry — my discipline of preference since an early age. After my honours year, I undertook a PhD in the School of Chemistry (Professors Franz Grieser and Muthupandian Ashokkumar as supervisors), during which I researched different phenomena that result from the interaction between ultrasound and matter. During my studies, I also had the remarkable opportunity to put my training in analytical techniques into practice in Antarctica over the course of one summer, as part of a collaborative project between the University of Melbourne and the Australian Antarctic Division. The University also provided me with valuable experience in teaching and science communication, as well as an excellent academic network that I benefit from today as a scientific editor.

After completing my PhD in 2010, I was awarded an Alexander von Humboldt postdoctoral fellowship to conduct research at the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces, Potsdam, Germany. In 2012, I decided it was time to leave the research lab; however, I still wished to work in a position that drew upon my scientific knowledge and kept me at the forefront of research. Thus, I moved into academic publishing, joining Wiley-VCH (Weinheim, Germany), where I worked from 2012 to 2015 as an editor of materials science journals, including Advanced Materials. In this role, I assessed the quality and significance of submitted primary research articles, critically selecting the most important of these to send for external peer-review, and ultimately decided on which papers were published.

In 2015, I relocated to London to join Springer Nature for the launch of the journal, Nature Reviews Materials. My main responsibility is commissioning articles from leading researchers in all areas of materials science. This requires me to attend key international conferences, visit research laboratories and to keep abreast of the latest research developments in the scientific literature. I also coordinate the peer-review process and work closely with researchers to prepare their articles for publication. In addition to handling manuscripts, I am kept busy with other tasks, such as writing news articles for the journal, giving editorial masterclasses and coordinating press releases.