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.
Christine Josenhans
Christine Josenhans is Professor for Microbiology and Medical Microbiology at Max von Pettenkofer Institute of Ludwig Maximilians University Munich and an infectious disease specialist. Until 2017, she was Associate Professor at Hannover Medical School, Germany, also in the field of infection research and molecular and cellular microbiology. Her research foci are on infectious disease agents in general, with specialization in microbiology, biochemistry, immunology, and host-pathogen interactions. She performed her Post-doctoral studies on Yersinia host-pathogen interactions, more specifically on their type III secretion system pore proteins. Current research foci are in persistent bacterial and viral infections, host-pathogen crosstalk and immune interference, as well as in the causal link between infections and cancer.
She is on the board of several undergraduate and graduate teaching programs.
Timothy Omara
Dr. Timothy Omara is a researcher with the Institute of Chemistry of Renewable Resources, BOKU University, Austria. He is also an Assistant Lecturer of Chemistry at the Department of Chemistry, College of Natural Sciences, Makerere University, Uganda.
He was previously with the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, School of Sciences and Aerospace Studies, Moi University, Kenya, and affiliated with the Centre of Excellence II in Phytochemicals, Textile and Renewable Energy (PTRE) hosted at the same University.
Dr. Omara holds research assiduity and proven track record of publications and refereeing across international peer-reviewed journals, with research interests including-but not limited to- food toxicology, analytical, natural products and environmental chemistry employing advanced analytical techniques.
He has published over 80 peer-reviewed articles and 5 book chapters as of August 2025, and currently serves as an Academic Editor in PeerJ Life & Environment, PLoS ONE, PeerJ Analytical Chemistry, Journal of Food Quality (Wiley), Natural Product Communications (SAGE) and VEGETOS (Springer)
Marcin Maciej Grynberg
Assistant Professor in The Institute of Biochemistry and Biophysics Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Poland. Graduate from The University of Warsaw. Former post-doc at The Burnham Institute, La Jolla, CA. Co-founder of the social scientist movement Citizens of Academia.
Giovanna Bosica
Giovanna Bosica graduated cum laude from the University of Camerino, Italy, in 1993 with a Laurea degree, equivalent to M.Sc.(Hons), in Chemistry and obtained her Ph.D. degree in Chemical Sciences, in the field of organic synthesis, in 1997 from the same institution. In 1995 during her Ph.D. she spent a six months research period at the University of Nijmegen, the Netherlands, as an Erasmus Fellow.
In 1999 she was appointed Assistant Professor of Organic Chemistry at the University of Camerino.
In October 2008 she moved to the University of Malta where she was appointed Associate Professor of Organic Chemistry in the Department of Chemistry and subsequently obtained the promotion to full Professor in March 2014. She lectures for different courses in the field of organic chemistry/synthesis and natural products.
She is member of the Royal Chemical Society (MRSC) since 2011 and of the American Chemical Society (ACS) since 2015. In March 2016 she has joined the European COST Association, participating at the COST Action CA15106, C-H Activation in Organic Synthesis (CHAOS), as a MC member from Malta [CA15106 MT].
Katharine L Stuble
Plant Biologist at The Holden Arboretum. Research focuses on the ecological impacts of global climate change and species invasions.
Our lab researches the basic mechanisms underlying the maintenance of diversity within communities, as well as how global change may alter these communities and the services they provide. We focus on two main drivers of global change: climatic warming and species invasions with a particular focus on how global change is altering interspecific interactions ranging from competition to mutualisms.
Xiaotian Tang
Dr. Xiaotian Tang is now an assistant professor (ZJU100 Young Professor) at Zhejiang University. He was a postdoctoral associate at Yale School of Medicine. His research interests include vector-borne diseases of animals and plants, and arthropod-pathogen-host interactions. He is also interested in evolutionary biology of arthropods.
He has over 40 publications in high-quality peer-reviewed journals, including Cell, PLOS Biology, eLife, Cell Reports, and Science Translational Medicine. He has served as academic or review editor for 4 journals and reviewer for over 20 journals.
Rita M Zrenner
Researcher at the Leibniz-Institute of Vegetable and Ornamental Crops (IGZ) performing functional examination of plant physiological processes and the underlying metabolic signal transduction pathways that control plant growth and secondary metabolite production in relation to plant health and environmental stimuli.
John J. Stegeman
Sr. Scientist and former Head of Biology and Watson Chair, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Director, NSF/NIH Woods Hole Center for Oceans and Human Health. Editorial Boards of several journals, former Editor-in-Chief, Aquatic Toxicology. Honorary Doctorate from Goteborg University.
Chris M Yeager
I am a broadly-trained microbiologist with a research background in molecular biology, microbial ecology, genomics and biogeochemistry. Over the past 12 years I have served as a Staff Scientist within the Department of Energy National Laboratory system, first in the Environmental Biotechnology Section at Savannah River National Laboratory (2005-2011) and then in the Biosciences and Chemistry Divisions at Los Alamos National Laboratory (2011-current). As a staff scientist, I developed and managed a variety of research programs, focusing on microbial communities involved in processes relevant to climate change, fate and transport of radionuclides in the environment and bioenergy production. I received a BS degree from the University of Wyoming in Biochemistry, after which I worked as a laboratory technologist at the University of Utah and the VA medical center in Salt Lake City, UT with a team investigating the molecular underpinnings of diabetes. I received my doctorate in Cellular and Molecular Biology at Oregon State University in 2001 under Drs. Daniel Arp and Peter Bottomley investigating biodegradation of toxic compounds, such as trichloroethylene and toluene, by soil microorganisms. I completed postdoctoral training (2001-2004) at Los Alamos National Laboratory under Dr. Cheryl Kuske examining how the microorganisms that build and maintain biocrusts in soils of arid environments might respond to climate change.
Mark C. Benfield
Professor in the Department of Oceanography and Coastal Sciences, College of the Coast and Environment at Louisiana State University. Adjunct (Guest Investigator) in the Biology Department at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Member and Past-Chair of the ICES Working Group on Zooplankton Ecology, member of the ICES Working Group on Integrated Morphological and Molecular Taxonomy, Director of the Gulf SERPENT Project. Ph.D. (Wildlife and Fisheries Sciences) from Texas A&M University.
Fabio TS Nogueira
Associate professor of Plant Molecular Biology and coordinator of the graduate program Plant Cell and Molecular Biology, University of Sao Paulo, Brazil. President, Institutional Biosafety Committee, University of Sao Paulo; Past President, Environmental Ethics in Research Committee, University of Sao Paulo.
Hao Chen
Dr. Chen's group uses behavioral genetics methods to study addiction related traits. The main behavioral models are intravenous nicotine self-administration and oral oxycodone self-administration in rats. Another area of focus is the identification of genomic variants in inbred strains of rats. A third area of research is the design of open source instruments and software for measuring rat behavior.