Fulvio Melia, distinguished professor in the Physics, Astronomy and Applied Mathematics departments at the University of Arizona, who is visiting Amherst this fall as a John Woodruff Simpson Lecturer, has been named editor of a recently launched astronomy journal.
Melia was appointed editor-in-chief of European Astronomy Studies Development, an open access journal that seeks to publish high-quality, peer-reviewed, original manuscripts in all fields of astronomy and astrophysics, with a particular focus on computational astronomy: mathematical and astronomy techniques and methodology, simulations, modeling and numerical results and computational techniques in instrumentation.
The open access format is a relatively new phenomenon in publishing, but will likely be a rapidly growing trend in the coming years. This approach allows manuscripts to be published within one to two months of submission in an environmentally responsible manner. It permits the widest possible distribution of published results with a speed and efficiency almost rivaling those of archival preprint servers, though with the greatly added advantage of a thorough refereeing process.
Melia, who is teaching a course this fall called “High-Energy Astrophysics,” is both an internationally known theoretical astrophysicist and an accomplished author, having published both technical and nontechnical books on physics and astronomy.