Skip to main content
Erick Carreira to lead the Journal of the American Chemical Society

Erick Carreira to lead the Journal of the American Chemical Society

September 2020

NISO Member News

Washington, DC - September 3, 2020

The American Chemical Society (ACS) has appointed Erick Carreira, Ph.D., as editor-in-chief of its flagship journal, the Journal of the American Chemical Society (JACS). Carreira’s appointment will begin in 2021.

Born in Cuba in 1963 and based in Switzerland, Carreira will be both the first JACS editor-in-chief to live outside of the U.S. and the first Latin American to lead the journal. Carreira obtained his Bachelor of Science from the University of Illinois and earned a Ph.D. in chemistry from Harvard University in 1990. He has been a full professor at the Organic Chemistry Laboratory of the ETH Zürich since 1998. There, his research group focuses on the asymmetric synthesis of biologically active, stereochemically complex natural products. He is the recipient of numerous international awards and is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences (U.S.) and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Carreira has been the editor-in-chief of Organic Letters since January 2019. He has 141 publications in the ACS portfolio of journals and has published 54 times in JACS. His JACS appointment follows an extensive public search that saw over 100 nominations from across the chemistry community.

“Since my first publication in JACS in 1988, the journal has played a significant role in my career. It’s an honor to lead this publication,” says Carreira. “Chemistry has reached an exciting era, as discoveries and theoretical approaches can now be combined with advances in innovative technologies to enable unparalleled expansion of what is possible in the vastness of chemical space. JACS will continue to play a critical role in the chemistry community, identifying new and emerging research areas, promoting the diverse community of researchers, reviewers, and authors, and reflecting the dynamism of the field of chemistry.”

To support the strategic development of the journal, Carreira has identified and appointed six new executive editors. In addition to being eminent scientists, the executive editors represent the diversity of chemistry in research and background.

  • Joseph Francisco, Ph.D., president’s distinguished professor of chemistry at the University of Pennsylvania, brings a long and distinguished career in atmospheric chemistry and computational techniques to the journal. A former Sloane and Guggenheim fellow, Francisco was the president of the American Chemical Society from 2009-2010. 
     
  • Zhaomin Hou, Ph.D., deputy director of the RIKEN Center for Sustainable Resource Science in Japan, explores new catalysts for key reactions, including the transformation of atmospheric carbon dioxide and nitrogen into value-added chemicals.
     
  • Kai Johnsson, Ph.D., director at the Max Planck Institute for Medical Research, department of chemical biology and professor in the Institute of Chemical Sciences at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland. His current research interests focus on the development of chemical approaches to visualize and manipulate biochemical activities in living cells. He has been an associate editor with ACS Chemical Biology since 2005.
     
  •  Melanie Sanford, Ph.D., Moses Gomberg distinguished university professor of chemistry at the University of Michigan, is a world-renowned expert in catalysis, organic synthesis and organometallic chemistry. She was a MacArthur Foundation fellow in 2011 and has received a number of international awards. She joined JACS as an associate editor in 2014.
     
  • Karen Wooley, Ph.D., distinguished professor at Texas A&M University, is a polymer chemist with a particular focus on degradable polymers and complex polymer assemblies. She has received many awards over her career, including the Royal Society of Chemistry Centenary Prize and the ACS Award in Polymer Chemistry. She joined JACS in 2014 as an associate editor.
     
  • Due to existing commitments, a sixth executive editor — based in China — will be announced at the end of 2020.

“I am truly delighted Professor Carreira will join JACS as editor-in-chief and equally proud to welcome the journal’s new executive editors,” says James Milne, Ph.D., president, ACS Publications Division. “We are incredibly grateful to Peter Stang, Ph.D., for his leadership over the past 19 years. JACS has remained at the cutting edge of science throughout its history, largely through the journal’s editors focusing on the creative future of the field. I am confident Professor Carreira will continue the established JACS tradition of excellence and look forward to seeing his exciting vision shape the journal over the years ahead.”

Founded in 1879, JACS is the world’s preeminent journal in all of chemistry and interfacing areas of science and is the most cited journal in the field.

About This Organization

The American Chemical Society (ACS) is a nonprofit organization chartered by the U.S. Congress. ACS’ mission is to advance the broader chemistry enterprise and its practitioners for the benefit of Earth and its people. The Society is a global leader in providing access to chemistry-related information and research through its multiple research solutions, peer-reviewed journals, scientific conferences, eBooks and weekly news periodical Chemical & Engineering News. ACS journals are among the most cited, most trusted and most read within the scientific literature; however, ACS itself does not conduct chemical research. As a specialist in scientific information solutions (including SciFinder® and STN®), its CAS division powers global research, discovery and innovation. ACS’ main offices are in Washington, D.C., and Columbus, Ohio.