Almost two years after approving the charter for ECS Sensors Plus (ECS’s new gold open access journal scheduled to begin accepting submission in 2022), The Electrochemical Society Board of Directors approved the appointment of Dr. Ajit Khosla of Yamagata University, Japan, as the Founding Editor-in-Chief (EIC).

Ajit Khosla

Dr. Khosla has been a valued member of ECS for over 11 years, actively engaging with activities to move forward ECS’s mission. His service includes, but is certainly not limited to, Technical Editor of the Sensors Technical Interest Area for the Journal of The Electrochemical Society and ECS Journal of Solid State Science and Technology; Chair of the ECS Sensors Division; member of the Symposium Planning Advisory Board; Editor of the very popular JES Focus Issue on Sensor Reviews; Editor of the forthcoming JES Focus Issue on Women in Electrochemistry; and he is currently in the editorial stage of a book to be added to the ECS Monograph series in 2022.

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Bonnie Gray, professor at Simon Fraser University.

Editors’ Choice—Development of Screen-Printed Flexible Multi-Level Microfluidic Devices with Integrated Conductive Nanocomposite Polymer Electrodes on Textiles

Bonnie Gray, a professor at Simon Fraser University’s school of engineering science, was inspired by the city of Vancouver in British Columbia in her latest work.

“Vancouver is well-known for its technical clothing, and I have a lot of friends in the film industry who work in costume design. A combination of these influences and my own engineering background caused me to look further into integrating clothing with technology. That’s how I went on to become involved in developing screen-printed flexible multi-level microfluidic devices on textiles,” said Gray, which led to the fruition of her and lead author Daehan Chung‘s research paper, “Development of Screen-Printed Flexible Multi-Level Microfluidic Devices with Integrated Conductive Nanocomposite Polymer Electrodes on Textiles.”

In their open access paper, published in the Journal of The Electrochemical Society, the pair “present a flexible plastisol-based microfluidic process integrated with conductive nanoparticle composite polymer (C-NCP) electrodes for flexible active microfluidic devices on textile substrates.”

According to Gray, flexible and wearable microfluidic devices are among the newest wearable devices for applications in health monitoring, drug delivery systems, and bio-signal sensing. (more…)

Stuart Taylor Credit: OASPA

The Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association recently sat down with Stuart Taylor, publishing director of the Royal Society and their very own, newly appointed OASPA board member, for an interview. Taylor holds 30 years of experience in publishing and has witnessed many changes within the industry, such as the introduction of the open access model.

“I began in the commercial sector. Back then, open access wasn’t a topic I was aware of at all and the concept of open access publishing hadn’t even been invented,” says Taylor.

By the end of the 1990s, however, Taylor says the rumblings of an open access model began to make its presence within the publishing community, which at that time, “Was seen only as a threat to commercial companies. Something to be fought or at least contained.” (more…)

In honor of International Open Access Week, from October 22-18, The Scholarly Kitchen wrote a two-part series focusing on both publishers and researchers from disadvantaged global research landscapes. The following publishers and researchers share their thoughts, concerns, successes, and setbacks on their journey to complete access for all. (more…)

ECS celebrates Krishnan (Raj) Rajeshwar, a professor, researcher, former Interface editor, and former ECS president, by honoring him, on the occasion of his 70th birthday, with a Journal of The Electrochemical Society focus issue on semiconductor electrochemistry and photoelectrochemistry.

Learn more.

Topics of interest include but are not limited to fundamental studies on electrochemistry, photoelectrochemistry, and semiconductor devices.

Raj has spent a great deal of his career focusing in on the understanding and application of semiconductor electrochemistry and photoelectrochemistry himself. His research also includes work in solar energy conversion, environmental chemistry, and more. It’s evident that Raj is passionate about his life’s work.

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New for the 229th ECS Meeting: Stop by the ECS Publication Booth for a chance to win 1 of 4 Open Access Credits! These credits may be used to publish your paper as OA in either JES or JSS.

Please stop by the ECS Publications Booth, located on the Sapphire Level (Fourth Floor) of the Hilton Bayfront any time during Registration Hours and drop off your business card to enter the raffle. ECS will be raffling off 4 Open Access credits during the 229th ECS meeting (each credit is worth $800)!

Questions? Please email oa@electrochem.org and we’ll see you in San Diego!

Michael Gordin discusses the universal language of science and the demand for scientists to publish new discoveries in English.
Credit: Frank Wojciechowski

The words “permafrost,” “oxygen,” and “hydrogen” may look like the language of science, but these words really have Russian, Greek and French origins. So how is it that English has become the universal language of science? That is the question Michael Gordin, professor the history of science at Princeton, sets out to answer in his interview with PRI.

“If you look around the world in 1900, and someone told you, ‘Guess what the universal language of science will be in the year 2000?’ You would first of all laugh at them because it was obvious that no one language would be the language of science, but a mixture of French, German and English would be the right answer,” Gordin said in his interview.

Gordin goes on to describe how German – the dominant language of science – collapsed during WWI when a boycott was organized against scientists in Germany and Austria, prohibiting them from attending conferences or publishing in Western European journals. Pair this with the anti-German hysteria taking place in the United States and the rise of American scientific establishments, and you being to see how English started to take over as the universal language of science.

“And you have a set of people who don’t speak foreign languages,” said Gordin, “They’re comfortable in English, they read English, they can get by in English because the most exciting stuff in their mind is happening in English. So you end up with a very American-centric, and therefore very English-centric community of science after World War II.”

Here at ECS, due to our vast number of international members, we know science doesn’t conform to a specific mold or language. Through open access (OA) publication, we hope to break this rigidity and focus on the more important issue – the free dissemination of scientific research for the benefit of all. Find out more about ECS’ bold move toward open access publication and publish your paper as OA today.

Listen to Gordin’s full interview below.