2016: A Year in Review

As we embark on a new year, I am pleased to report that the state of your Journal is strong. During 2016, we have received and processed 738 new submissions from six continents with an average acceptance rate of 22%. The journal’s impact factor (IF) continues to improve with the one year IF at 1.696, and five years at 2.092. The paper review times continue to improve as well. The average review time to first decision is 1.8 months for all manuscripts (these include manuscripts that are declined by the editors and not sent out to external reviewers) and is 4 months to first decision for manuscripts that complete the peer review process.

The excellence of the journal is only achieved through the thousands of hours of hard work by the authors, the reviewers, the editorial board, and our colleagues at the ASCE Publications department. It has been a privilege working with my colleagues John McCartney, Rodrigo Salgado, Timothy Stark, Joseph Wartman, Pat Fox, John Christian, and Scott Brandenberg handling and processing new and revised submissions. Our colleague Joe Wartman has decided to retire from the board because he became the director of the newly NSF-funded center for Post-Disaster Data Collection. Joe has served the JGGE well and has provided editorial work that I characterize as fair, constructive, and helpful. I thank him for his excellent contributions to the journal over the years and wish him the best in his new endeavors. At the same time, we welcome Scott Brandenberg as Editor of the Journal. As many of you know, Scott has a rather diverse background with a focus on soil dynamics and geotechnical earthquake engineering. Scott has a proven track record of providing excellent service as Associate Editor (AE) for several years prior to his appointment as Editor.

One of the most important tasks the Editors do is to sustain the makeup and composition of the editorial board. In the past year, we have welcomed as new AEs Giuseep Buscarbera, Alan Lutenegger, Daniel Pradel, Adrian Rodriguez-Marek, Muhannad Suleiman, and Domniki Asimaki. We have also extended our sincere gratitude to our colleagues who retired as AEs last year: Perdo Arduino, Dijanpan Basu, and Kohji Takimastu. We thank them for their contributions and service to our profession. I am also delighted to report that the JGGE editors have selected Binod Tiwari to receive the Associate Editor of the Year award. This award is decided by the Editors, and Binod has provided sustained quality, quantity, and timely reviews back to the authors. I take this opportunity to congratulate Binod for receiving this honor.

In closure, we sincerely thank the 489 unique reviewers who provided service to your Journal in 2016. We strive to offer constructive review comments in a timely manner, and our peer reviewers are the key to accomplishing this objective. Our journal participates in the ASCE reviewers’ recognition program, and I take this opportunity to recognize Journal reviewers who provided exceptional service last year: Beena Ajmera, Riccardo Cappa, Lizhou Chen, Yan Jiang, Bengt Fellenius, Ben Leshchinsky, Sebastian Lobo-Guerrero, and Katerina Ziotopoulou. These reviewers will be recognized by ASCE with a certificate of appreciation and a letter of distinction. Finally, we continue to seek creative scholarly contributions that report on the results of ground-breaking and relevant geotechnical and geoenvironmental engineering research. So please think of us when deciding where to submit your most innovative work. As always, we are open to new ideas and feedback to continue to improve your journal.