Kirk S. Schanze, Ph.D to Lead New American Chemical Society Materials Journal

Newswise — The American Chemical Society has announced that its Board of Directors has confirmed the appointment of Kirk S. Schanze, Ph.D., professor of chemistry at the University of Florida in Gainesville, as editor-in-chief of the Society's planned new peer-reviewed journal, ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces.

To be introduced online and in print in the first-quarter of 2009, ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces will provide a new resource for authors and readers interested in the rapid publication of comprehensive articles, concise letters reporting novel findings and advances, editorial commentaries, and topical forums that concentrate on areas of interdisciplinary interest.

In his leadership role, Schanze will direct the activities of an expert editorial advisory board that will represent the diverse information needs of the growing number of research and development professionals in the applied materials and interface sciences, now working in academic, corporate, and government settings around the globe.

The journal will be the first ACS chemistry publication to focus solely on the applied science and engineering aspects of materials and interfaces. Its editorial content will include a broad range of topics across the advanced materials sciences, and will cater to the interdisciplinary interests of chemists and professionals engaged in active and well-funded areas of applied research and development. Examples of important subjects of widespread interest to be explored by ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces include advanced active and passive electronic/optical materials, coatings, colloids, biomaterials and biointerfaces, polymeric materials, hybrid and composite materials and friction and wear. Selected issues of the journal will include topical "Forums" —an editorial feature that will group collections of articles as focused reports on cutting-edge developments and novel applications of importance to the journal's intended global readership.

With its focus on applications, ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces will complement existing ACS publications such as Chemistry of Materials, Langmuir, Biomacromolecules, Macromolecules and The Journal of Physical Chemistry B and C, which highlight basic research studies reporting on fundamental scientific discoveries.

"The ACS Publications Division is delighted to have the opportunity to partner with Professor Schanze on this exciting publishing endeavor, and we look forward to working with him and his editorial board as we bring our traditional and innovative web publishing strengths to bear in bringing to fruition what should be an indispensable new information resource for our members, institutional customers, and readers," said Susan King, Ph.D., senior vice president, Journals Publishing Group.

Kirk Schanze earned his B.S. in chemistry from Florida State University in 1979 and his Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1983. He was appointed a Miller Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of California, Berkeley, from 1984-1986 and began his post-graduate research career at the University of Florida in 1986. Schanze has served as professor of chemistry and chairman of the Organic Chemistry Division at the University of Florida since 1997. In addition to participating as a panel member for the Research Associateship Program at the National Research Council, he has lent his expertise as a senior editor for the ACS publication, Langmuir. Since 2003, he has authored or co-authored more than 60 peer-reviewed articles on basic and applied research topics, with a primary focus on organic and organometallic materials chemistry, and is named in 10 patents or disclosures.

Schanze's research is focused on the interaction of light with small molecules, polymers, and materials. He and his students have an interest in photochemical and photophysical processes that are stimulated when molecular systems absorb light. The laboratory's current work centers on the phenomenon of luminescence; among many projects, they are using the light emission process of molecules and materials to develop novel light emitting devices (polymer LEDs) and novel fluorescent sensors. Additionally, Schanze has worked with a broad range of corporate and government organizations. He collaborated with engineers at NASA's Langley Research Center to develop photoluminescent temperature and air pressure sensor coatings for wind-tunnel applications in the National Transonic Facility, a unique cryogenic wind tunnel facility. Schanze also worked on a multi-year R&D project, now being commercialized by Lambert Technologies, to develop luminescent coatings and measurement technology for the full-field measurement of mechanical strain distributions on complex engineering prototype objects. His research on luminescent sensor coatings and analytical methods was instrumental in helping start-up company AeroChem commercialize technology developed in conjunction with his colleagues at the University of Florida's Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department, and he has served also as consultant and member of the scientific advisory board for QTL Biosystems, LLC, a company involved in biosensor development.

The American Chemical Society — the world's largest scientific society — is a nonprofit organization chartered by the U.S. Congress and is a global leader in providing access to chemistry-related research through its Chemical Abstracts Services (CAS) suite of databases and SciFinder software for chemical knowledge discovery, its renowned collection of peer-reviewed journals, and its unrivalled offerings of scientific conferences. The Society's main offices are located in Washington, D.C., and Columbus, Ohio. Included among the Society's portfolio of preeminent publications are the flagship Journal of the American Chemical Society and Chemical & Engineering News, the chemical industry's leading weekly news magazine.