Journal Recognized with Richard R. Torrens Award

This will be the first March issue of the Journal published since it increased from four to six issues per year and became a bimonthly. Over the last few years, the Journal has experienced growth in both the quantity and quality of accepted papers and an increase in the number of papers downloaded. This growth has culminated in the expansion of both the number of pages in the Journal and the frequency of publication.

In recognition of the impact of the Journal, the Publications Division of the ASCE and the Subcommittee on Technical Advancement recently bestowed the 2013 Richard R. Torrens Award to the Journal, which I accepted on its behalf. The award was presented by Bruce Gossett, ASCE’s Managing Director of Publications, at the annual Editors’ Workshop, which was held November 2013 at the ASCE offices in Reston, Virginia. The Richard R. Torrens Award was created to honor the memory of Richard Torrens, who served in the Publications Department at ASCE for 17 years and was the manager of professional and technical publications.

According to the ASCE, “The award is made in recognition of Torrens’ distinguished service and honors volunteer journal editors who have made outstanding contributions to the ASCE journals’ program.” The award is based on achievements in various categories, including journal competitiveness, turnaround time, growth, and creativity and innovation shown by the editor, among other measures of accomplishment.

The leadership and dedication shown by the associate and guest editors have been instrumental in the success of the Journal. Their improved turnaround of papers and their organization of special issues and sections on timely topics in aerospace engineering are especially notable. Recent special sections and special issues have included the following:

I would like to express my thanks to the Journal team, which includes associate editors Robert Goldberg (NASA), Pier Marzocca (Clarkson University), and Pizhong Qiao (Washington State University); outgoing associate editors Haym Benaroya (Rutgers University) and Daniel Valentine (Clarkson University); and guest editor Agus Budiyono. I am pleased to announce that Aman Behal (University of Central Florida) has joined the team as our newest associate editor; we appreciate his service to the Journal thus far and are grateful for his help. Sheila Pearson (University of Akron) has served as editorial assistant and has provided support both to me and the associate editors since coming aboard in 2011. Another important part of the team is our panel of expert reviewers who will all be recognized by name in an upcoming issue of the Journal.

On behalf of the editorial team at the Journal, I would like to thank the staff at ASCE for providing their expertise and timely assistance to us in the review process and to the production team at ASCE for their efforts in producing each issue of the Journal.

We look forward to another successful year as we seek to have a greater impact in the field. We appreciate everyone—Journal team, professionals at ASCE, authors, and our readers—for contributing to the success of the Journal of Aerospace Engineering.