Langmuir Announces an Annual Series of Special Issues Honoring Pioneers in Applied and Fundamental Interfacial Chemistry (PAFICs)

Abstract

Published as part of Langmuir special issue “2023 Pioneers in Applied and Fundamental Interfacial Chemistry: Nicholas D. Spencer”. In 2024, Langmuir celebrated its 40th anniversary. Among other initiatives, Langmuir is launching the annual recognition of Pioneers in Applied and Fundamental Interfacial Chemistry (PAFICs), a new series of Special Issues (SIs) that will recognize pioneers in interfacial research to honor distinguished researchers who have made noteworthy fundamental and applied contributions to the field. The PAFICs are exemplars of influential scholars and leaders in the field. They tackle disciplinary challenges with extraordinary insight, and they inspire us as well as the next generation of scholars whom they have been training. Guided by them and the contributions by editors of the journal, we will be assembling SIs that include invited research articles and reviews in areas of interfacial science related to the work of each pioneer. To understand what has made their contributions possible and exceptional, we will ask each pioneer to provide a description of their career pathway, in the hopes that it might inspire and guide new and young researchers to join the field of research and make similar contributions. Langmuir is honored to announce our first three pioneers: Janet A. W. Elliott, Santanu Bhattacharya, and Nicholas D. Spencer. Janet A. W. Elliott, Professor and Canada Research Chair in Thermodynamics in the Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering (University of Alberta, Canada). A pioneering theoretician, she has made leading contributions in thermodynamics, biomedical engineering and regenerative medicine, transport phenomena–fluid dynamics/mass and heat transfer, mathematical and molecular modeling, nanomaterials and nanofabrication, oil sands, energy, surface science and engineering, colloids and surfaces, and cryobiology and cryopreservation. For further information, please see in her SI “Pioneers in Applied and Fundamental Interfacial Chemistry: Janet A. W. Elliott”, to be published in March 2025, the editorial (DOI: 10.1021/acs.langmuir.5c00585) and the Q&A (DOI: 10.1021/acs.langmuir.4c04353). Santanu Bhattacharya, Professor of Organic Chemistry (Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Bangalore, India), Director (Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Tirupati (IISER) Tirupati, India). In the field of molecular design, Prof. Bhattacharya has focused on lipids and their analogues, nucleic acid targeting/binding/modifying molecules, decontamination reactions in aggregates, and biomolecular sensors. In the field of chemical biology, he has addressed mechanisms of drug action on DNA, chemistry of telomeres, membrane formation and assembly, and gene transfer. In supramolecular chemistry, his work has advanced our understanding in surfactants, liquid crystals, oligomers, and low molecular mass gelators. Furthermore, his work in nanoscience has addressed nanomaterials such as gel nanocomposites. For further information, please see in his SI “Pioneers in Applied and Fundamental Interfacial Chemistry: Santanu Bhattacharya”, to be published in April 2025, the editorial (DOI: 10.1021/acs.langmuir.5c00589) and the Q&A (DOI: 10.1021/acs.langmuir.4c04352). Nicholas D. Spencer, Professor of Surface Science and Technology in the Department of Materials (ETH Zurich, Switzerland) from 1993 to 2020. Now Professor Emeritus, his work has covered a wide range of topics distributed across micro-/nanotribology, material effects, lubricant effects, reactions in lubricant films, tribochemistry, adsorption/adsorbed films, asperity contacts, micro-/nanostructures, lubricating oils, lubricant additives, surface functionalization, surface analysis, biointerfaces, and gradients. For further information, please see in his SI “Pioneers in Applied and Fundamental Interfacial Chemistry: Nicholas D. Spencer” the editorial (DOI: 10.1021/acs.langmuir.5c00588) and the Q&A (DOI: 10.1021/acs.langmuir.4c04224). We would like to extend our warmest congratulations to Professors Janet A. W. Elliott, Santanu Bhattacharya, and Nicholas D. Spencer for their inspiring contributions to their respective areas of interfacial research and celebrate their outstanding achievements! We hope our readers will also benefit from the invited articles published in these PAFIC SIs and find inspirations in the Q&As with our inaugural PAFICs. We are grateful to our editorial board, 2024 PAFICs candidates, reviewers and the editorial team for the great contributions that have made our PAFICs initiative, SIs and Q&As possible. This article has not yet been cited by other publications.