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.
Mark Tibbett
Professor of Soil Ecology at the University of Reading. Co-Editor-in-Chief of Soil Research.
Research interests include mycorrhiza, plant-soil interactions, terrestrial biogeochemistry and restoration ecology.
Hugo A. Kerhervé
I am a sport and exercise scientist with a multidisciplinary background in exercise physiology, biomechanics and motor control.
I am interested in multifactorial approaches to human acute and chronic adaptation to various stresses, through the study of:
- the factors of performance in individual and team sports in participants with and without disabilities;
- the human-equipment and human-environment interface in performance and injury prevention;
- exercise interventions for health and well-being throughout life and across cultures;
- age-specific and sex-specific factors of cardiovascular, biomechanical and neuromuscular adaptation.
Tim Stinear
Professor Tim Stinear is a Senior NHMRC Research Fellow and molecular microbiologist in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at the Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity, University of Melbourne, Australia. He leads a bacterial pathogenesis research lab that focuses on using comparative and functional genomics to understand how certain bacteria evolve, spread and cause disease. In particular, his team studies pathogenic mycobacteria and hospital superbugs Staphylococcus aureus (Golden Staph) and Vancomycin Resistant Enterococci (VRE). He received his PhD in Microbiology from Monash University in 2001 followed by a 3-year postdoctoral period at the Institut Pasteur, Paris. He is a fellow of the Australian Society for Microbiology.
Luca Paolo Ardigò
Prof. Luca Ardigò is an exercise physiologist and biomechanist.
His research focuses on:
1) bio-mechanics & -energetics of natural human/comparative movement/locomotion
2) bio-mechanics & -energetics of assisted human movement/locomotion
3) portable devices for measuring physical activity & metabolic expenditure
4) Research methods issues
Dr. Ardigò is a member of Propulsione Umana (Italian national association member of WHPVA) and leader of international team to design & manufacture a handwaterbike.
Michela M Johnson
I am a postdoctoral researcher at the State Natural History Museum in Stuttgart. I completed my PhD at the University of Edinburgh in 2019. My work focuses on teleosauroids, a group of semi-marine Jurassic crocodylomorphs, and aspects of their morphology, phylogenetics, taxonomy and ecology. For my postdoc I am studying their ontogeny and body size distribution during the Early Jurassic.
Yolanda van Heezik
Professor in the Zoology Department at the University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand, with an interest in urban ecology. Worked as a wildlife biologist in the Middle East and Southern Africa.
Valeria Spagnuolo
Valeria Spagnuolo is Associate Professor in Botany at the Department of Biology at the Federico II University of Naples. She obtained a Ph.D. in molecular systematics (plants) and the scientific qualification to Full Professor 05/A1 (Botany) during the ASN 2018.
Dr. Spagnuolo was involved in several research projects, with a focus on biomonitoring and phytoremediation, within her task/unit and in international teams (the most recent ones: EU Project FP7- ENV.2011.3.1.9-1 Mossclone (2012-15); LIFE11 ENV/IT/275 Ecoremed (2012-2017); PON 03PE_00107. Biopolis (2013-2017).
Dr. Spagnuolo's expertise includes genetic variation in natural populations of mosses along environmental gradients; biomonitoring of air quality by cryptogams and vascular plants; and phytoremediation of metal-polluted soil. In recent years, her long research experience has been centred on plant response to abiotic stresses and biomonitoring of indoor air pollution.
She is involved in editorial activities, as a reviewer for international journals (e.g. Environmental Pollution, Frontiers in Plant Science), as a guest editor in Atmosphere and Plant Journals, and as an editor of the latest Italian edition of Raven (Zanichelli).
Dr. Spagnuolo has published over 60 publications (Scopus ID 6602352988), with an h-index 20 and over 1200 citations. She also detects a patent as the inventor of a tool for biomonitoring of air quality (EP 3 076 171 A1).
Juan P Quimbayo
I am an ecologist who uses a multidisciplinary approach to understand and conserve biodiversity through space and time. I earned my Ph.D. from the Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina in Brazil and served as a Research Scientist at the Ohio State University. I previously conducted post-doctoral work at other institutions, including the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center and São Paulo University. I joined the U in 2024 as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biology where I established the BioScales Lab. My lab focuses on exploring: (1) patterns and processes of biodiversity dynamics across space and time, (2) ecological interactions, and (3) effects of global change on biodiversity. To investigate these themes, we integrate theoretical concepts, statistical tools, and field-based methods across multiple scales.
Leslie Ries
Leslie Ries is an ecologist who focuses on patterns at both medium and large scales. She has worked both in the fields of landscape ecology and biogeography with her focus mainly on butterflies. Over the last 10 years, she has shifted from a field approach to using large databases, mostly originating from citizen science monitoring networks.
Xugao Wang
Xugao Wang is a professor of forest ecology at Institute of Applied Ecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Shenyang, China. He received a B.S. from Qufu Normal University in 2001, and completed his Ph.D. in ecology from the Institute of Applied Ecology, CAS in 2006.
Currently, he is interested in causes and consequences of biodiversity in natural forests. The causes of interest include ecological processes, such as species interaction, environmental filtering and dispersal limitation maintaining and influencing biodiversity in natural forests. Recently, he is especially interested in the role of soil microbes and environmental variables in determining spatio-temporal patterns of plant diversity. The consequences interested him most are the effects of multi-trophic biodiversity on forest ecosystem functioning and stability.
Marcello Iriti
Dr. Marcello Iriti is an Associate Professor of Plant Biology and Pathology within the Department of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences at the University of Milan.
He has been studying nutraceuticals, functional foods, phytotherapeutics and essential oils relevant for human and animal health, focusing on their preclinical (in vitro/in vivo) and in human pharmacological activities. He has also been investigating the health-promoting effects of traditional Mediterranean diet as well as the ethnopharmacology of herbal remedies of traditional healing systems.
Dr. Iriti is a Member of the World Academy of Sciences, Asian Council of Science Editors and Society of African Journal Editors. Founding Member of the Italian Society of Environmental Medicine. Member of the Working Group ‘Pharmacognosy, Phytotherapy and Nutraceuticals’ of the Italian Pharmacological Society.