This year marks 20 years of my membership with MRS. My journey with MRS started as a graduate student attending the 2003 MRS Fall Meeting in Boston. Two years later, I competed for graduate student awards and was given my award at the 2005 MRS Fall Meeting. As an MRS member, I could say I grew up with MRS and have seen the society fulfilling its mission to be an organization for materials researchers worldwide that promotes communication for the advancement of interdisciplinary materials research and technology to improve the quality of life.

I took the Editor-in-Chief position for MRS Energy & Sustainability in 2019. In my 2019 letter, I promised that we would start to publish original research contributions with particular emphasis on materials sustainability and life-cycle assessment. Today, more than half of the articles of our journal are original research articles, with a very healthy balance of reviews, perspectives, and commentaries. Any successful journal is characterized by a dedicated team of editors and staff, a fair and rigorous peer-review process, high-quality copy-editing and production, swift publication, and editorial independence. We have all these key elements, as well as a world-class platform provided by the MRS community, with which MRS E&S’s visibility and reputation have grown globally in the past 5 years. We are very fortunate to have Springer Nature as our publishing partner and in a span of less than 5 years, we have achieved our first Impact Factor of 4.3! It is an incredible achievement thanks to all the authors, reviewers, Editorial Advisory Board, MRS staff members, and Springer Nature staff members.

Among the people I must thank, I want to express our gratitude to one person in particular, Dr. George Crabtree. George dedicated his life to the materials science community by providing thought leadership and championing science to governments and the public. Over the years, George provided me with valuable insights and advice. When asked to join the Editorial Advisory Board of MRS Energy & Sustainability, he said yes without hesitation and provided tremendous help and support along the way. We miss George in our MRS community. It is people like him that make our community a wonderful place to pursue the work we love.

This year we celebrate MRS’s 50th Anniversary, and on behalf of the journal, I ask all our community members to contribute to our energy and sustainability flagship journal by writing an article, reviewing for the journal, or recommending the journal to your colleagues. Small actions by many will collectively make a big difference. I am privileged to lead the journal to continue to serve our MRS community and make MRS Energy & Sustainability one of the best journals for energy materials research that showcases the convergent research among science, technology, economics, and policy.

Y. Shirley Meng, Editor-in-Chief

Sep. 15th, 2023.