Dr. Maria Schumacher was recently appointed as an Executive Editor of the journal, Nucleic Acids Research (NAR). NAR is ranked 8th out of 296 in the category of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and over the years has increased its impact factor to 19.16. As an executive editor, Maria will handle manuscripts in her area of expertise; this involves assigning reviewers for manuscripts selected for review, then generating an editorial decision to send to the authors. The journal is very much in line with her research in protein-nucleic acid interactions.
Professors Barry Stoddard, of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Institute, and Julian Sale, of UK Research and Innovation are the journal’s chief editors. They are leading experts in the study of nucleic acid research, have a shared vision that is fair and unbiased, and have gathered a staff who are all focused on nucleic acid research and want to see the journal succeed.
Maria was unsure that she could handle the extra work—she also sits on an NIH study section, has a lab with five members, and continues her experiments. But Schumacher cited the fact that Stoddard and Sale make everyone feel like family which helped convince her to take on the task.
Maria is the Nanaline H. Duke Distinguished Professor of Biochemistry and currently has a MIRA and R01 grants from the National Institute of Health.