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Announcements
5 March 2025
Interview with Dr. Przemysław Podulka—Winner of the Materials 2024 Outstanding Reviewer Award
The Outstanding Reviewer Award is presented annually to recognize individuals who generously dedicate their time to reviewing papers while demonstrating thoroughness, professionalism, and timeliness.
We are thrilled to share the following interview with one of the winners of the Materials 2024 Outstanding Reviewer Award, Dr. Przemysław Podulka. In the field of academic publishing, reviewers play a pivotal role as the “gatekeepers” of scholarly quality. Through their expertise and rigorous approach, they meticulously examine each submitted academic paper, ensuring that it meets the highest standards of research and academic quality.
Below is a short interview with Dr. Przemysław Podulka:
1. Could you introduce yourself to our readers? What is your current research area?
My area of expertise is surface metrology, considering the accuracy of surface topography measurements, including studies of roughness, which is a crucial key to improving the machined material properties. The researcher provided an analysis of the functional performances of the surface and indicated a strong relation to its topography. Currently, many surface measuring instruments are fast but burdened with errors caused while measurement occurs, which must be evaluated in detail and supported by many sophisticated studies by the researcher. The correlation of many functional properties of the surface was established by him in detail using a comprehensive analysis of accuracy in topography measurement data collection.
2. What factors motivate you to be a reviewer for Materials?
Reviewing is also a possibility to find the most recent studies around the topic of the reviewer's expertise. Since there are many papers published around each specific area of study, complete reading of all of them is difficult. Therefore, often reviewing manuscripts allows for recognizing submissions from beginning to end.
3. What are your tips on how to prepare a qualified review report?
Each submission must be treated separately considering the specific area of study. However, there are some key requirements from each of the submissions, which are verified when reviewing. Further, from my perspective, I also request for the manuscript to be readable and understandable for both regular and expert readers. Therefore, the scientific paper must be familiar to casual or more sophisticated readers.
4. Based on your rich reviewing experience, could you please share the common problems that authors face?
Usually, the authors do not properly motivate their research work. In practice, each of the proposals must be supported by a lack in the current state of knowledge. This dearth must be defined by a critical review of the literature and previous solutions.
5. Materials is an open access journal. Is its peer review process different from that of subscription journals?
Compared to other publishing platforms, some differences can be drawn. Some differences are also required from the publishers themselves. However, the review itself is similar, the number of comments depends directly on the quality of the manuscript submitted. Usually, a journal with Impact Factors (IF) requires detailed feedback and must receive a proper response to evaluate the manuscript suitably and rate the paper according to its quality. Even if the decision is on the editor's side, the reviewer is responsible for an accurate assessment of the manuscript's peer review.
6. Which research topics do you think will be of particular interest to the research community in the coming years?
Except for the general digitalization which is currently designated, Artificial Intelligence (AI) solutions, including some machine learning, and automation applications, can be in one of the greatest future potentials.
7. Has being a reviewer affected how you prepare your manuscripts?
Being a reviewer is crucial in increasing the experience for each of the researchers. When reading many papers word by word it is easier to understand the quality required from each of the journals. Each review is also teaching from a scientific point of view. Defining some doubts about the proposals presented can be also stimulating for discussing the current solutions of the underlying mechanisms in smaller dimensions.
