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Announcing the Inaugural AGU Advances Early Career Editorial Fellows
Editors’ Vox is a blog from AGU’s Publications Department.
AGU Advances is excited to announce the journal’s inaugural Early Career Editorial Board! The editors of AGU Advances have selected three early career researchers to join the Early Career Editorial Fellow program:
Huilin Huang
University of Virginia
Yihe Huang
University of Michigan
Danielle Monteverde Potocek
Spark Climate Solutions
They will serve as Associate Editors from January 2026 to December 2027, under the leadership of the mentoring editors: David Schimel (Jet Propulsion Laboratory), Thorsten Becker (The University of Texas at Austin, Jackson School of Geoscience), and Eric Davidson (University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science), respectively. AGU Advances is excited to join AGU journals GeoHealth and JGR: Biogeosciences (Xenopoulos, M. A., and T. H. Nguyen, 2024) in launching an Early Career Editorial Fellow program and grateful to our exceptional Early Career Fellows for volunteering their time in service of scientific publishing. This mentorship program, designed to offer a hands-on approach for researchers interested in editorial roles, will support the next generation of researchers and journal editors and lead to stronger futures for our journals and scientific community.
The Early Career Fellows will work one-on-one with a current AGU Advances Editor.
The Early Career Fellows will work one-on-one with a current AGU Advances Editor to learn about the steps of the editorial process, the ethics of reviewing, and what goes into making a decision on a manuscript. They will also learn about the more challenging elements of the editorial process, such as securing reviewers, addressing conflicting reviews, addressing author and/or reviewer concerns.
As the scientific world, and the world at large, change and shift, so too does the world of academic publishing and the needs of future researchers. By working with these Early Career Fellows, we will gain invaluable insight on how to keep our publications at the forefront for the Earth and space sciences.
Below, we asked the Early Career Fellows about their research interests and what they are excited about as they step into this new role (responses edited for length and clarity):
What is your current role and area of research?
Danie: “My areas of research include: biogeochemistry, geobiology, climate science, and global environmental change. “
Huilin: “My area of research is land-atmosphere interaction especially biosphere-atmosphere interaction and climate modeling.”
Yihe: “My group studies the physical mechanisms of earthquakes and faulting processes using both observational methods (e.g., seismic data analysis) and numerical tools (e.g., earthquake rupture simulation). We’re particularly interested in how fluid, fault zone structure, and fault geometry can affect the nucleation, propagation and arrest of earthquakes and how earthquakes contribute to the strain budget and structural evolution of fault zones and plate boundaries. We also have a broad interest in developing physical tools for seismic hazard mitigation and bridging earthquake science and engineering applications.”
Do you have prior experience as a journal editor?
Danie: “This is my first experience in an editorial role.”
Huilin: “I am currently working as the associate editor of Geophysical Research Letters.”
Yihe: “Yes, I’ve been an Associate Editor for JGR: Solid Earth since 2020, and I’ve been an editor for Earth, Planets and Space since last year.”
What interested you in joining the AGU Advances editorial board?
Danie: “I was eager to learn more about the publishing process from the editorial perspective, engage with fellow editors, and contribute to supporting the scientific community. I was also particularly drawn to the structure of the Early Career Board, which offers the opportunity to be mentored by a senior editor and develop editorial expertise before handling manuscripts independently. “
Huilin: “I am drawn to AGU Advances because it prioritizes high-impact studies that fundamentally shift our understanding.”
Yihe: “I’m interested in getting a broader perspective about how an editorial board works, especially for a cross-disciplinary high-impact journal like AGU Advances.”
What would you like to see next from AGU Advances or the AGU journals as a whole?
Danie: “AGU Advances already has a strong focus and track record of publishing research with global relevance and impact. I am excited to support this mission and would also like to see continued expansion of the author base to include more diverse geographies (particularly Asia and Global South) as well as a broader range of career stages.
I would also welcome AGU journals to continue their outreach and engagement with the community that balances traditional hypothesis-driven research with action-oriented perspectives addressing urgent scientific and societal challenges especially considering the rapidly shifting landscape of scientific research.”
Huilin: “I am particularly interested in seeing the conversation toward the use of new technolog[ies] (like AI/ML or new satellite, new models) to advanc[ing] process-level understanding.”
Yihe: “I would like to see editors’ perspectives on how AGU Advances distinguishes itself from other high-impact journals. I would also like to learn how we can advertise and communicate the advantages of publishing in AGU Advances through different avenues.”
We are so appreciative of our volunteer Editors, David Schimel, Thorsten Becker, and Eric Davidson, who will be mentoring our new Early Career Fellows. Here, we asked them what they are looking forward to most about the program:
What outcomes for AGU Advances do you hope to see from the Early Career Board?
Dave: “ECRs provide a fresh view and are often much closer to the methods and science in papers we receive. An ECR and a Board editor have a great combination, experience, perspective and familiarity up close with the work and the community.”
Eric: “The associate editors become interested in being full editors and are well prepared. At a minimum, they have an experience that makes them better authors and reviewers because of the perspective they’ve gained as associate editors.
Why did you decide to become a mentoring editor?
Editing scientific papers can be a true joy of learning and discovery.
Thorsten Becker
Thorsten: “We value a diversity of perspectives and background when assessing contributions during initial and formal review, and it will be terrific to benefit from Yihe’s expertise. Editing scientific papers can be a true joy of learning and discovery, and we think this position will be a great pathway to take on a larger role in this community process while having a somewhat reduced workload and being able to participate in an exchange about best practices and a mentoring system that can hopefully facilitate sharing best practices and insights gained from prolonged work in an editorial role.”
Dave: “Oh, man, when I started as a peer reviewer and then a guest editor, followed by being a member of a board, each step was sink or swim! I am happy to share a few lessons learned but also expect to learn a lot from my ECR’s view from the cutting edge. I think we’ll have fun learning from each other.”
What advice would you give to early career researchers interested in becoming journal editors?
Seeing publishing from the other side is really important for maturing scientists!
David Schimel
Dave: “Being an editor is an amazing way to broader your knowledge and network, but being an editor is serious work, is a paper going to advance science, or, with appropriate guidance could it advance science? Does it build on the literature or ignore relevant work? Accepting/rejecting papers has huge career impact on authors but we have to keep in mind we review papers to advance science, not to play career games, while recognizing publications have become very much about careers with all manner of distorted and perverse incentives. Seeing publishing from the other side is really important for maturing scientists! Also, you learn that ten extra minutes to explain a decision to an author can change a life! I’ve learned a HUGE amount from the peer reviewers and editors of my own papers!”
Eric: “Accept invitations to review manuscripts. Let an editor or EiC know of your interest. Make sure you have the time to do this.”
—Allison Schuette (aschuette@agu.org, 
0009-0007-1055-0937), Program Coordinator, AGU Publications; Alberto Montanari (0000-0001-7428-0410), Editor-in-Chief, AGU Advances; Huilin Huang (0000-0002-7328-6738), Early Career Fellow, AGU Advances; Yihe Huang (0000-0001-5270-9378), Early Career Fellow, AGU Advances; Danielle Monteverde Potocek (0000-0002-0198-8220), Early Career Fellow, AGU Advances; Thorsten Becker (0000-0002-5656-4564), Editor, AGU Advances; Eric Davidson (0000-0002-8525-8697), Editor, AGU Advances; David Schimel (0000-0003-3473-8065), Editor, AGU Advances; Kristina Vrouwenvelder (0000-0002-5862-2502), Assistant Director, AGU Publications; and Sarah Dedej (0000-0003-3952-4250), Assistant Director, AGU Publications
