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.
Melanie Kah
Melanie Kah graduated with a MSc in Agronomy and Soil Sciences (University of Nancy, France), before completing her PhD on the fate of ionisable pesticides in soils (University of York, UK). She was then recruited by the UK Food and Environmental Research Agency (FERA), where she assessed the exposure and hazard of a wide range of contaminants, within projects commissioned by government and industry. In 2009, Melanie moved to the University of Vienna (Austria), where she developed projects looking at the interactions between organic contaminants and natural/engineered nanoparticles. Melanie was a Distinguished Visitor at the CSIRO Land and Water in 2018 (Adelaide, Australia), before joining the School of Environment at the University of Auckland (New Zealand) in 2019.
Charles D Johnson
Dr. Johnson earned his BS and PhD from Texas A&M University, with an intermediate MS degree from Clemson University. He completed a postdoc at the University of Louisville, leading to his role as associate director of bioinformatics for the Center for Genetics and Molecular Medicine at the same institution. He played a foundational role in creating the statistics and bioinformatics division at Ambion/Asuragen Inc. Following this, Dr. Johnson founded BioMath Solutions LLC, a bioinformatics-focused startup specializing in software development for genomic technology firms.
Presently, Dr. Johnson serves as the Director of Genomics and Bioinformatics Service at Texas A&M AgriLife.
Donovan H Parks
Donovan Parks holds a PhD in computer science and has developed a number of bioinformatic programs used by the research community including CheckM, STAMP, and GenGIS. He has expertise in bioinformatics relating to microbial ecology, phylogenetics, and metagenome-assembled genomes. He is currently working as a bioinformatic consultant with the Australian Centre for Ecogenomics where he is working on an initiative to resolve long-standing issues within bacterial and archaeal nomenclature and developing new tools for reconstructing and validating genomes obtained directly from environmental samples.
Timothy Omara
Timothy Omara is an Assistant Lecturer of Chemistry at the Department of Chemistry, College of Natural Sciences, Makerere University, Uganda.
Research interests are at the interface of food science and toxicology, analytical and environmental chemistry employing advanced analytical techniques. Current focus is on [micro/nano]plastics analysis using µ-FTIR and Pyrolysis GC-MS. Academic Editor in PeerJ, PLoS ONE and Journal of Food Quality [Wiley]
Kyoshiro Sasaki
Dr. Kyoshiro Sasaki is an experimental psychologist and an Associate Professor within the Faculty of Informatics at Kansai University. He obtained his PhD in 2016 where he engaged in research on embodied emotion. He has a wide range of research interests; emotion, embodied cognition, object recognition, spatial and temporal cognition, psychological ownership, and metascience.
Dr. Sasaki is an editorial board member of Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, PLOS ONE, the Japanese Journal of Psychonomic Science, and the Japanese Journal of Research on Emotions. He is also a Recommender of Peer Community In Registered Reports.
Erik R Seiffert
Erik Seiffert's research is focused on the phylogenetic relationships, adaptations, and historical biogeography of mammals, with an emphasis on the endemic placental mammals of Africa and Arabia. He has a B.A. from the University of California at Berkeley (1995), an M.A. from the University of Texas at Austin (1998), and a Ph.D. from Duke University (2003). He was previously Lecturer in Palaeobiology and Palaeoenvironments at University of Oxford and Curator of Geological Collections at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History (2004-2007), Assistant and Associate Professor of Anatomical Sciences at Stony Brook University (2007-2016), and is now a Professor of Integrative Anatomical Sciences at the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California (2016-Present). He is also a Research Associate at the Duke Lemur Center's Division of Fossil Primates and in the Department of Mammalogy, Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County.
Michael S Rappé
Mike is a tenured Research Professor at the Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology, and is a member of the graduate faculty with the Departments of Oceanography, Microbiology, and the interdisciplinary Marine Biology Graduate Program at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. The overarching theme of his research is to understand the impact of microbial genetic diversity on ocean ecology, and interpret this diversity through the lens of bacterial taxonomy and evolution. He investigates the ecology and evolution of marine microorganisms by combining surveys of natural microbial communities, nucleic acid sequence data, and studies with model systems in controlled laboratory settings.
Jian Zhang
Dr. Jian Zhang currently works at the Division of Gastrointestinal Surgery & Gastric Cancer Center, The First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University. Jian does research in Genetics/Epigenetics and Cancer Research. He is also the editorial board member of Frontiers in Oncology and Frontiers in Bioinformatics.
Jayakumar Saikarthik
Dr Saikarthik has an undergraduate degree in Radiology and Imaging Sciences Technology from Sri Ramachandra Medical College and Research Institute, India. He obtained his MSc in Medicine and Anatomy, followed by a PhD in the same specialty from the prestigious Saveetha University, India.
Dr Saikarthik's research interests include, Gross and Radiological Anatomy, Neurogenesis and Neurohistology, Psychiatric Epidemiology, Medical Education and Qualitative Research Methods. He has authored many scientific articles which have been published in ranked journals. Recently he has also published a book chapter on the association of COVID-19 with neurogenesis.
Dr Saikarthik is a fellow from the Institute of Biomedical Sciences, UK; Member of the British Association of Clinical Anatomy; Member of the Saudi Society of Medical Education and Member of the Royal Society of Biology UK. He is also a member and certificate holder of Essential Skills in Medical Education from Association of Medical Education from Europe.
Some of his awards include: Best oral presentation award from Association of Anatomist of Tamilnadu, Young researcher in Anatomy and Mental health (2021) and Global Faculty Award (2020). He is also currently an Associate Editor at Majmaah Journal of Health Sciences.
Yumeng Li
Dr. Yumeng Li is an associate professor in the Department of Health and Human Performance at Texas State University.
His primary research area focuses on sports and clinical biomechanics.
Meredith Root-Bernstein
I am an ethnobiologist and interdisciplinary conservation scientist. I have two masters degrees in Zoology (ethology) and Conservation, Biodiversity and Management, and a PhD in Ecology. During my degrees and several post-docs I developed competencies in social sciences methods and human geography and anthropological theory. I have worked in Chile since 2008, developing socio-ecological approaches to conservation, restoration, and rewilding. In addition, I have done fieldwork-based research projects in Denmark, Italy, and Lesotho.
Humaira Yasmin
Dr Humaira Yasmin is tenured Associate professor (TTS) within the Department of Biosciences, COMSATS University, Islamabad, Pakistan. Her research interests include plant-microbe interactions, plant stress physiology, biofertilizers technology, soil microbiology, crop pathology, plant protection, plant biochemistry and molecular biology, medicinal plants, environmental microbiology, and agricultural nanotechnology. Dr Yasmin's research focuses on understanding the detailed biochemical mechanisms adapted by crops when exposed to biotic (fungal/ bacterial) pathogens, abiotic stresses (drought, salinity, heavy metals and heat). She is also investigating various eco-friendly and economic solutions to reduce the adverse impacts of environmental stresses on economically important crops. The techniques studied include isolation, characterization and mode of action of plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR). Green synthesis and characterization of nanoparticles from medicinal plants and their application in agriculture to alleviate different stresses. Application of growth regulators (hormones (GA, ABA, SA, BS etc.), chelators (Oxalic acid, mellic acid etc.) and other chemical compounds to increase plant protection. Moreover, synergistic effects of the above mentioned solutions are also under consideration.