Editorial works: Work for second-rate minds?
Abhik
Ghosh
By
now I have undertaken over a dozen editorial projects, often prompted
by
my colleagues, sometimes on my own initiative. I love to teach and
there is no denying that the edited material I have organized has been
widely used in both graduate and undergraduate courses. Yet, each time
I undertake a new project, I hear Hardy's admonition in my ears:
"there is no scorn more profound, or on the whole more justifiable,
than that of men who make for the men who explain. Exposition,
criticism, appreciation, is work for second-rate minds." (Download pdf:
A Mathematician's Apology, a must-read if you
haven't read it)
Times have changed since Hardy. We live under an information
explosion, which as Murray Gellman aptly put, is all too
often a misinformation explosion. Exposition, criticism, appreciation,
is more important than ever ... although, of course, it must always
take a back
seat to research.
Editorial
boards: I have served two 3-year stints on the editorial
advisory board of the Journal of Biological Inorganic Chemistry.
Currently, I serve on the editorial boards of the Journal
of Porphyrins and
Phthalocyanines and the
Journal of
Inorganic Biochemistry. From
2007, I am also the European Editor of Chemtracts
Inorganic Chemistry.
Current
Projects
13.
Listen up, GenY: Wait for
this book to find out why chemistry is the hot new career choice for
you!
12. DFT in Bioinorganic
Chemistry, an edited book scheduled for appearance in 2009.
Expected contributors: Frank Neese, Louis Noodleman, Per Siegbahn,
Pawel Kozlowski, Walter Thiel, Sason Shaik, Abhik Ghosh, and the list
is still growing!
11. Special
issue
on "Theory
and spectroscopy in coordination chemistry", in Coordination Chemistry Reviews,
2008
Completed Projects
10. The new Bible of heme
proteins,
Elsevier, 2007!
9. Commentaries on "Just
how good is DFT?", in
the Journal
of Biological Inorganic
Chemistry,
2006, Issue no. 6
Link
to the journal issue
The editorial
8.
Special
issue
on "High-Valent Iron Intermediates in Biology"
of the Journal of Inorganic
Biochemistry, April, 2006
Link
to the special issue
The editorial
7. Special
issue
on "Heme-diatomic interactions" of the Journal of Inorganic
Biochemistry, January and April, 2005
Link
to the journal issue (Part 1): pp 1-354
Link
to the journal issue (Part 2): pp 891-978
6. Guest
section on "Computational
bioinorganic chemistry. Part III. The tools of the trade: from
high-level ab initio
calculations to structural bioinformatics", in Current opinion in Chemical Biology,
February, 2003.
Link
to the special issue
The editorial
5. Guest
section on "Theoretical
perspectives on bioinorganic chemistry. Part II. Non-heme metalloenzymes",
in Current opinion in Chemical
Biology, April, 2002.
Link
to the special issue
The editorial
4. Guest section
on "Theoretical
perspectives on bioinorganic chemistry. Part I. Hemes, B12
and F430",
in Current
opinion in Chemical
Biology,
December, 2001.
Link
to the special issue
The
editorial
3.
Special issue
on "1950-2000: Fifty years of theoretical
research on porphyrins" of the Journal
of Porphyrins and Phthalocyanines, March, 2001.
Link
to the special issue
The
editorial
2.
Commentaries on "High-valent
metalloporphyrins: metal versus ligand-centered oxidation", in
the Journal
of Biological Inorganic
Chemistry,
September and October, 2001.
Link
to the journal issue (Part 1): pp 726-738
Link
to the journal issue (Part 2): pp 823-856
The
editorial
1. Commentaries on "Heme-diatomic
interactions", in the Journal
of Biological Inorganic Chemistry, August, 1997.
Link
to the journal issue
The editorial
