Interview with Dr. Xuejun Qian—Winner of the Energies 2022 Outstanding Reviewer Award

We are pleased to announce the winner of the Energies 2022 Outstanding Reviewer Award—Dr. Xuejun Qian.

Name: Dr. Xuejun Qian

Affiliation: Industrial and Systems Engineering Department, Morgan State University, Baltimore, USA

Research Interests: biomass combustion system; gaseous emissions; shell and tube heat exchanger (STHE); stirling engine; refrigeration system; heat transfer; fuel property characterization; biomass utilization

We would like to thank the award committee for their hard work in the difficult task of selecting five winners from such a large number of excellent candidates and Dr. Xuejun Qian is one of the winners. We will continue to reward reviewers with the Outstanding Reviewer Award to express our acknowledgment of their efforts in maintaining the high quality and quick turnaround time of the journal, and we wish them every success in their careers.

We hope you enjoy the interview.

1. Could you give a brief introduction of yourself to the readers?
   My name is Xuejun Qian. I am currently working as a Postdoc Researcher at the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center (GLBRC) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW-Madison). Before joining UW-Madison, I worked at Morgan State University as a Research Associate/Lab Manager from 2019 to 2020 and Michigan State University as a Research Associate from 2021 to 2022.

2. What’s your current research focus, and why did you choose this research field? As a reviewer, what kind of manuscripts would you prefer to review in the future?
   My current research focus is to develop genome-scale metabolic models, including constrained-based resource analysis models and proteome allocation models for biological systems. System biology, computational modeling, optimization and metabolic engineering of microbial biofuel producers are integrated to enhance yields and titers of bioproducts and bio-chemicals from sustainable biomass resources. My research interests extended to biomass fuel properties characterization, energy resources, computational modeling, combustion, heat transfer, emissions, energy systems, optimization and statistical analysis. I would like to review manuscripts in the fields of energy, particular biomass conversion, metabolic pathways, and energy systems.

3. Which research topics do you think are of particular interest to the research community in the coming years?
   Biomass transformed into sustainable biofuels and bioproducts, such as isobutanol and isoprene, may be particularly more interesting to the research community, since it has a higher value and is more economically viable and environmentally sustainable than the conventional products, including ethanol. Computational models can be further developed to study and investigate the production of these bioproducts from biomass substrates.

4. We are an open access journal. How do you think open access impacts authors?
   Open access enables authors to have high visibility and potential for more citations that show the contribution and extension of new discoveries based on their findings.

5. Which qualities do you think reviewers need?
   Reviewers must be able to determine the accuracy of the results and information and appropriateness of the manuscripts to the particular journal’s aims, as well as expertise and good analytical skills.