It has been an honor and a privilege for me to serve as the Editor for the ASME Journal of Heat Transfer over the last five years. Though it has been challenging and time consuming, I have felt fortunate in following in the footsteps of the previous Editors, who are among the leading figures in the heat transfer community. The journal has grown substantially over the past decade, going from quarterly publication to monthly and becoming one of the largest and best known journals published by ASME. It has also become a preeminent venue for publication in the field of heat transfer, with a considerable international presence. This is seen in more than 60% of the submissions coming from abroad and the large number of Associate Editors from outside the USA.
The journal has a very strong reputation for high quality papers in a wide variety of areas in which heat transfer plays a dominant role. Uniformity of standards is ensured by the Associate Editors, who are assigned papers on the basis of their expertise rather than the country in which they are located. It has been a pleasure to work with some of the most active and dedicated researchers in the field as Associate Editors. They have worked hard to uphold the prestige of the journal by interacting with experts in different areas as reviewers. It is largely because of their effort that the journal has grown in stature in recent years. In 2008, the impact factor of the journal stood at 1.421, with a 5-year impact factor of 1.634 and a half life of greater than 10. Though the impact factor has fluctuated through the years, it cannot be denied that the journal, with an acceptance rate of around 35%, is a widely respected publication, which presents the best in traditional and emerging areas in the field of heat transfer.
The journal has also focused on the publication of a number of special volumes in areas like micro/nanoscale heat transfer, materials processing, bio heat transfer, computational heat transfer, microchannels, and boiling, in order to present the state of the art in these important areas and indicate current trends and future needs. These volumes have also expanded the reach of the journal by bringing in researchers from outside the heat transfer community. The Editorial Board has always felt that heat transfer arises in many important areas of thermal sciences, such as energy, environment, manufacturing, bio systems, and nanomaterials, that are often not considered as part of heat transfer. It has thus been our effort to bring researchers and engineers interested in such fields to the journal, both as contributors and as readers.
Because of the importance of heat transfer in practical and industrial processes and systems, the Editorial Board developed plans for a new journal, which would focus on thermal sciences and bridge the gap between long-term fundamental research and practical use of this information. These efforts resulted in the ASME Journal of Thermal Science and Engineering Applications. Though I served as the proposer and then briefly as Editor of this journal, it is now a well-established independent journal which attracts applied papers in different areas of thermal science and engineering. It is expected and hoped that this journal will play an important role in attracting industrial researchers and engineers to thermal science and engineering and provide impetus to applied research in this field.
My assistant, Shefali Patel, has been instrumental in the success of the journal through her constant and careful monitoring of the papers, correspondence with authors, Associate Editors and ASME staff, preparation of the reports on the journal, and taking care of many other routine and non-routine matters, such as selection of best reviewers, maintenance of reviewer lists and appointment of Associate Editors. I am greatly indebted to her for her dedicated and outstanding service to the journal. I am also grateful for the excellent support provided by ASME publication staff, particularly Philip DiVietro, Colin McAteer, Judith Sierant, and Beth Darchi. They were always willing to help if problems or urgent issues arose. I could always turn to them for their guidance and support for new ideas and plans for the journal. Certainly, the expansion of the journal, development of the new journal, publication of a wide variety of special volumes, and improvements in the web system would not have been possible without their support and encouragement. I would also like to thank the Executive Committee of the Heat Transfer Division for their continuous support and guidance and the previous Editor, Vijay Dhir, for his initial guidance to get me started. I learned a lot about the journal from Ray Viskanta and Jack Howell, with whom I served as Associate Editor, and this experience has been valuable in my service as editor.
On October 1, 2010, Professor Terry Simon of the University of Minnesota will take over as the Editor. Terry has served in the past as an Associate Editor of JHT and is an active researcher and member of the heat transfer community. I am fully confident that Terry, along with the dedicated group of Associate Editors, will continue to uphold the excellent reputation and prestige of the Journal.
Best wishes to all our readers and contributors.
