Goodbye 2024, Hello to an Exciting 2025!

Time truly flies when you are enjoying the journey, and it is hard to believe it has already been a year since I became Editor-in-Chief of ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces portfolio of journals. Reflecting on the past year, I feel deeply grateful for the growth we have shared and the achievements we have accomplished together. I am pleased to report that our submissions continued to increase in 2024. We are grateful for the ongoing support from authors, reviewers, and our dedicated journal development team. This year also marked the beginning of our Early Career Board Members program, and the overwhelming response is a testament to our community’s enthusiasm and engagement. Our 2024 ACS outreach activities (Figure 1), primarily in China, the United States, and South Korea, allowed me to meet many authors and reviewers and gain a deeper appreciation for their excellent work. I applaud each of you for your invaluable contributions to the field. Figure 1. (Top) Group photo and (bottom left) panel discussion at ACS On Campus at Sichuan University, October 2024. The panel discussion featured Erika Zhang (ACS Managing Editor), Yiying Wu (Deputy Editor of ACS Applied Energy Materials), and Jiagang Wu (Associate Editor of ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces) on stage together, sharing insights. (Bottom right) A wonderful gathering to enjoy an authentic Korean meal after an afternoon of meetings at Ewha Womans University in November 2024 with our editors from Korean institutions, including Profs. Hyun-Jae Kim, Joohoo Moon, So-Jung Park, Sang Hoon Joo, Jang-Kun Song, Hyo Jae Yoon, Suyeon Cho, and Juyoung Yoon. . Year 2024 concluded with successful in-person Associate Editor meetings, such as ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces and ACS Applied Polymer Materials at the ACS Spring Meeting 2024, ACS Applied Optical Materials and ACS Applied Electronic Materials at MRS, Seattle, ACS Applied Bio Materials at CCS Chemistry in Guangzhou, and ACS Applied Nano Materials and ACS Applied Engineering Materials at the ACS Fall 2024 meeting. It is always challenging to bring our team together in one place, so thank you to everyone who made the effort to attend. At ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, in 2024, we welcomed new Executive Editor Huaping Xu (Tsinghua University, China) and new Associate Editors Hao Ming Chen (National Taiwan University, Taiwan), Chong Liu (University of California Los Angeles, United States), Biswarup Pathak (Indian Institute of Technology Indore, India), Su Ying Quek (National University of Singapore, Singapore), Simone Raugei (Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, United States), Jianfang Wang (The Chinese University of Hong Kong, China), Yan Yu (University of Science and Technology of China, China), and Sara Thoi (Johns Hopkins University, United States). We also congratulate Prof. Fengwei Huo (Nanjing Tech University, China) on his promotion to Executive Editor. At the same time, we also bid farewell to Editors Rabah Boukherroub (CNRS and University Lille, France) and Ashutosh Sharma (Indian Institute of Technology, India), who have retired from the journal, and Yiying Wu, who was appointed as Deputy Editor for ACS Applied Energy Materials. We thank them deeply for their significant contributions over the years. At ACS, we place great value on the trust authors place in us when submitting their manuscripts. Our team is continually striving to improve the review process and to provide fair, rigorous assessments. While this process is not always without its challenges, we appreciate your patience and professionalism. We apologize for any delays or issues that may arise, and we ask for mutual respect and understanding as we work to refine our workflows. Thank you all for your continued dedication and support. Looking ahead to 2025, I hope to see many of you at upcoming ACS meetings and other global conferences, including the Applied Materials & Interfaces Conference between 3 and 5 July in Singapore and the Gold Conference in San Sebastian, as well as MRS events in Brazil and ICMAT in Singapore. ACS will host a reception at ICMAT 2025 in Singapore, and updates on this and other activities will be available on my research website. We also look forward to the announcement and increased activity and engagement of the Early Career Board Member program, which promises to bring fresh energy to our journals and communities. May year 2025 bring us inspiration, collaboration, and success in all our scientific adventures together! This article has not yet been cited by other publications.