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Nonlinearity: 2016 Reviewer Awards

Reviewer of the Year: Professor Dmitry Pelinovsky, McMaster University, Canada

With its balanced mix of rigorous mathematics and ‘interesting’ physics, Nonlinearity is one of Professor Dmitry Pelinovsky’s favourite journals—and the most rewarding part of refereeing for this journal is having the opportunity to be exposed to subjects that closely correlate to his past and present research projects.

Based at McMaster University in Canada, Professor Pelinovsky is also Associate Editor of Studies in Applied Mathematics (Wiley) and an editorial board member of Physical Review A (American Institute of Physics). He believes that to improve the peer review process overall, editors should ask for reviews from two or three researchers for each manuscript before deciding whether to accept or reject it. This because a decision based on one report tends to be subjective.

One paper that recently resonated with Professor Pelinovsky was Solitons in quadratic media. He believes that ‘good papers’ achieve a balance between relevant scientific problems and correct mathematical problems. Professor Pelinovsky has stringent reviewing standards; if the manuscript is either misleading or scientifically uninspiring, he will reject it. Likewise, papers that present interesting physics but have incorrect mathematical justifications—or rigorous arguments on a subject that has already been exhausted by others—will not be received positively.

He urges young mathematicians embarking on a review for the first time to have the confidence to point out arguments they suspect may be invalid or wrong. It is also important that they broaden their research horizons by keeping up to date with different research groups working on similar problems.

Outstanding Reviewers:

  • Dr Thomas Carr, Southern Methodist University, United States
  • Dr Tomasz Cieslak, Polish Academy of Sciences – Institute of Mathematics, Poland
  • Dr Gerhard Dangelmayr, Colorado State University, United States
  • Dr Francesco de Anna, Universite de Bordeaux, France
  • Professor Charles Doering, University of Michigan, United States
  • Professor Alexandre Dutrifoy, Universite Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium
  • Dr Reinhard Farwig, Technische Universitaet Darmstadt, Germany
  • Professor Lucas C F Ferreira, State University of Campinas, Brazil
  • Dr Giovany Figueiredo, UFPA, Brazil
  • Dr Stefano Galatolo, Universita di Pisa, Italy
  • Dr Ryan Goh, Boston University, United States
  • Dr Xiaoying Han, Auburn University, United States
  • Dr Yulij Ilyashenko, Russian Academy of Sciences – Landau Institute for Theoretical Physics, Russia
  • Dr Alexei Ilyin, Russian Academy of Science, Russia
  • Professor Peter Kloeden, Johann-Wolfgang-Goethe-Universitat, Germany
  • Dr Carlo Laing, Massey University, New Zealand
  • Mr Johannes Lankeit, Universität Paderborn, Germany
  • Professor James Meiss, University of Colorado, United States
  • Dr Vicenc Mendez, Universidad Autonoma de Barcelona, Spain
  • Professor Eugen Mihailescu, Romanian Academy, Romania
  • Dr Vahagn Nersesyan, University of Versailles, France
  • Dr Takashi Nishikawa, Northwestern University, United States
  • Dr Yuan Pei, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, United States
  • Dr Stephen Schecter, North Carolina State University, United States
  • Dr G Seregin, University of Oxford, UK