Donoghue cited as 'Outstanding Referee' by American Physical Society

Physics professor John F. Donoghue has been named an Outstanding Referee by the American Physical Society in recognition of his work assessing manuscripts for publication in the organization’s journals.

Created last year, the new award program will annually recognize 130 of the 42,000 currently active referees, but in its first two “catch-up” years larger groups are being honored. Last year, 534 referees were cited and this year another 340 received the designation. Like fellowship in the APS and other organizations, it is a lifetime award.

According to APS, the award program “expresses appreciation to all referees, whose efforts in peer review not only keep the standards of the journals at a high level, but in many cases also help authors to improve the quality and readability of their articles — even those that are not published by APS.”

The selection of Outstanding Referees was based on two decades of database records on more than 50,000 referees (some no longer in active service) who have been called upon to review manuscripts, of which 34,400 were submitted in 2008. Most of the referees chosen in the first two years of the program have given dedicated service for many years. The basis for selection was the quality, number and timeliness of their reports, without regard for membership in the APS, country of origin, or field of research. Individuals with current or very recent direct connections to the journals, such as editors and editorial board members, were excluded. In the first two years of the program the lifetime of work contributed by a referee was emphasized but in future years, the focus will be on the more recent work of referees.

This year’s honorees come from 35 different countries, with large contingents from the U.S., Germany, U.K., Canada and France.

The American Physical Society is one of the world's largest professional body of physicists, representing more than 47,000 physicists in academia and industry around the world.

April 13, 2009.

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