Outstanding referee 2015 reward to Aalto University physicist

He has assessed  manuscripts in three journals published by the Society: Physical Review B, Physical Review Applied, and Physical Review Letters.

This year, Patrick Rinke is one of 142 referees given this honor. Editors selected the honorees based on the quality, number, and timeliness of their reports, and this time out of 60,000 colleagues providing feedback to researchers seeking publication in the American Physical Society’s journals. Read more about the APS Outstanding Referee Program.

“Peer review is the essence of our academic system of accreditation and validation, and it is mainly done by committed scientists. Referees provide quality assuranceing and also judge the importance of the reported results and discoveries, in particular in top tier journals. As such, peer reviewers should adhere to best practices, almost like a code of honor,” says Rinke.

Assessing manuscripts is a voluntary activity, but nonetheless rewarding. "While peer reviewing is often time consuming, it is also interesting, because we get to read about new discoveries first," he adds.

An author himself, he understands the importance of returning his peer view reports on time and always with constructive feedback to improve the quality of manuscripts – whether or not they eventually appear in one of the APS’s journals.

Rinke is an expert in computational materials science with a focus on theoretical spectroscopy. He specializes in developing and applying computational methodology for tackling outstanding problems in semiconductor science and technology and in hybrid materials, such as interfaces between organic and inorganic materials. Rinke leads the Computational Electronic Structure Theory group (CEST) at the Centre of Excellence in Computational Nanoscience (COMP) in the Department of Applied Physics and is actively building his team of PhD students and Postdoctoral Researchers.
Patrick Rinke's Researcher ID: