Academic Editors
The following people constitute the Editorial Board of Academic Editors for PeerJ. These active academics are the Editors who seek peer reviewers, evaluate their responses, and make editorial decisions on each submission to the journal. Learn more about becoming an Editor.
Dee A Carter
Professor in Microbiology, School of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Sydney, Australia. Member of the Marie Bashir Institute, University of Sydney. Professional Member of the Australian Society for Microbiology and Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology.
Carlos A Santamaria
Santamaria’s primary research interests are on cryptic biodiversity and phylogeography of coastal invertebrates, particularly those from highly biodiverse and geologically active regions such as Hawai’i, southern Africa, Pacific Islands, the Greater Caribbean Region, the Mediterranean and the Baja Peninsula of Mexico.
As a Hispanic, he is aware of the difficulties that under-represented students face in higher education and when pursuing careers in the biological sciences. Thus, he is dedicated to increasing their participation in the sciences. He has mentored undergraduates who self-identify as members of underrepresented groups in his research activities. He also participates in community outreach events as well as professional development programs geared towards developing a better understanding of the needs of a multi-cultural student body and to improve the participation of under-represented groups in the sciences.
Sankar Subramanian
Senior Lecturer at the University of the Sunshine Coast, Moreton Bay, Brisbane, Australia; USC Senior Research Fellow; Smithsonian Fellow; Adjunct Research Fellow (Griffith University)
Dr Sankar Subramanian is a Senior Lecturer in Genetics. Sankar joined USC as a Senior Research Fellow in March 2017. Prior to this he worked at the Australian Research Centre for Human Evolution, Griffith University. His research primarily centers around the question of, how does genetic drift influence mutations. Sankar worked on a number of research projects to investigate the interaction between drift and mutations, which include the evolution of codon usage bias in animal genomes, temporal patterns of deleterious mutations in humans and penguins, difference in the allele frequencies of polymorphisms in global human populations. Sankar has developed methods to identify and quantify deleterious mutations in human populations. Dr Subramanian is also interested in estimating rates of mutations and divergence times between species and populations. His research also focuses on studying ancient genomes to understand the past demographic history of vertebrates including ancient penguins, tuatara (a New Zealand reptile), moa (an extinct bird) and ancient humans. Furthermore, he is investigating the population history, mutational load and admixture patterns of modern and ancient Aboriginal Australians. At USC, he has started working on the conservation genomics of Australian Dingoes.
Edward L Braun
Professor of Biology, University of Florida; member of UF genetics institute and Affiliate Curator Florida Museum of Natural History
Takeshi Kurita
I am a Professor of Biology at the Institute of Science Tokyo. My research interest lies in the molecular and cellular basis of development and reproduction, two fundamental processes for all multicellular organisms. I am particularly interested in the cell and tissue communications that regulate these processes. In embryonic development, interactions between tissues of different cell lineages drive organ formation by activating genetic and epigenetic programs for tissue patterning and cellular differentiation. Tissue interaction also plays a fundamental role in mammalian reproduction as it mediates the actions of sex steroid hormones in reproductive organs. Deregulation of signaling pathways that control tissue communications could lead to conditions such as cancer. Thus, I also investigate the molecular pathogenesis of disorders in reproductive and hormone-target organs. Since mammalian development and reproductive functions are controlled by complex crosstalk among multiple tissues, organs, and systems, we primarily use in vivo mouse models for the investigation.
Understanding the molecular mechanisms underlying the fundamental process of life is a goal of our research. In addition, our research also aims to improve human health through translational research based on the knowledge obtained through basic research.
Ross H Miller
Dr. Miller is an Associate Professor in the Department of Kinesiology at the University of Maryland (College Park, MD, USA). His research focuses on the mechanics and energetics of human locomotion in health and pathology, with an emphasis on causes and prevention of knee osteoarthritis.
Fernando Mata
Dr. Fernando Mata has an academic background in Agronomy and Animal Production at the Technical University of Lisbon, Portugal, where he also completed his postgraduate studies in Applied Maths. In addition, Dr. Mata completed his postgraduate studies in Pedagogy for Higher Education at The University of the West of England, UK. The skills gained while studying Maths and Animal Science led to him becoming an Animal Welfare Epidemiologist, the topic of his Doctorate in Veterinary Sciences at Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge.
Professionally, he began his career as a dairy farmer and later moved into academia. He has lecturing experiences both in Portugal (Polytechnic Institute of Portalegre) and in the UK (University of the West of England, Newcastle University, Greenwich University and Wrexham Glyndwr University).
Currently, Dr. Mata is fully focused on research at the Centre for Research and Development in Agrifood Systems and Sustainability in the Polytechnic Institute of Viana do Castelo Portugal. Fernando has Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy, is a Registered animal Scientist with the British Society of Animal Science and is a Certified Biologist with the Royal Society of Biology. Apart from Animal Welfare Epidemiology, Fernando is interested in Animal Production, and Animal Performance in general.
Darren F Ward
I am an entomologist whose research interests are focused on the threats of invasive insects, the diversity of parasitoid communities, and the utilisation of data from natural history collections in ecological research.
Irene L.G. Newton
Assistant Professor of Biology in the Microbiology section. Woodrow Wilson Foundation Fellow, Andrew Mellon fellow, and advisor to the Social Science Research Counsel, former Howard Hughes Medical Institute Predoctoral Fellow and former NSF postdoctoral fellow.
David E.K. Ferrier
Reader in Biology and Director of the Scottish Oceans Institute, at the University of St Andrews.
The focus of our research is the connection between the content and organisation of genomes to the evolution of development (evo-devo). We utilize a variety of organisms in our research (including amphioxus, sea squirts, polychaetes and priapulids), chosen from key points in the phylogeny of the animals to enable reconstruction of the ancestral conditions at major nodes in the animal kingdom; the origin of bilaterians, protostomes, deuterostomes, chordates and vertebrates.
Muhammad Aamer Mehmood
Dr. Muhammad Aamer Mehmood is a Professor of Industrial and Environmental Biotechnology at Government College University Faisalabad, a Distinguished Expert, and Visiting Professor of Industrial Biotechnology at Sichuan University of Science & Engineering. He is a recipient of several national/international awards/funding. He is serving as an Editor of several reputed journals.
Jorge Curiel Yuste
Dr. Jorge Curiel Yuste, leads the group of "Terrestrial Ecology" within the BC3. He obtained his doctorate from the University of Antwerp (UA, Belgium) in 2004. Since then, he has been a postdoctoral researcher at the Biometeorology (Biometlab) lab at the University of California, Berkeley (Prof. Dennis D Baldocchi, 2004-2007) a Marie Curie fellow (Intra-European Fellowship (IEF)) in the Global Ecology Unit at the Centre for Ecological Research and Forestry Applications (CREAF) of Barcelona (2007-2009), a postdoctoral researcher at the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB; Contractes doctoral D'Intensificatió I3, 2009-2011) and a "Ramón y Cajal" research fellow at the Museum of Natural History (MNCN, CSIC). Since 2017 he holds an Ikerbasque Research Professorship at the Basque Center for Climate Change (BC3). At the moment he is also responsible for the group of "Plant and soil Interactions" (PlanSoil within the Asociaciión Española de Ecología Terrestre (AEET)