6/27/2017 J. Mech. Des 139(8), 080201 (2017)
I am pleased to announce the Journal of Mechanical Design’s (JMD’s) Editors’ Choice Paper Awards for the years: 2014, 2015, and 2016.
Back in May 2014, I wrote an Editorial in JMD titled: “Announcing JMD’s Annual Best Paper Award Guidelines.” In that editorial, I outlined the procedures we planned to follow to choose a yearly best paper from papers published in JMD in that year. However, after much further thought and input from the design engineering community, including many JMD Associate and Guest Editors and Editors of other ASME journals, I have decided to call this award: “Editors’ Choice Paper Award.” The words “Editors’ Choice” were used to refer to the Associate Editors (AEs) and Guest Editors (GEs) involvement in the nomination and selection process.
Let me review the process of selecting the editors’ choice paper(s). First, the AEs and GEs involved with the journal in a particular year were asked to nominate papers from those published in JMD in that year. Next, AEs and GEs were asked to vote on the nominated papers. Finally, a three-member committee from current and/or former AEs was formed to finalize the selection. The charge to the committee was to select one or more papers from JMD papers published in each of the years 2014, 2015, and 2016 and which were nominated and voted on by AEs/GEs.
As stated in my 2014 Editorial, the selection criteria used were based on (i) fundamental value of the contribution, (ii) expectation of archival value (e.g., expected number of citations), (iii) practical relevance to mechanical design, and (iv) quality of presentation. The selection committee informed me that in addition to these criteria, it considered the following two criteria: “The breadth of interest and applicability” and “whether the paper addressed an emerging area or an area of immediate interest in the community.” With its final selection, the committee also indicated that: “while we had strong consensus around the papers that were selected, we wanted to make sure that taken as a body the three papers represented a variety of communities and interests (e.g., we did not want three optimization papers or three gear train papers).”
I am now pleased to inform you that the selection committee has finalized and informed me of their selection of Editors’ Choice Paper Awards for each of the years 2014–2016, as listed below:
- –2014 Editors’ Choice Paper Award: “A Descriptor-Based Design Methodology for Developing Heterogeneous Microstructural Materials System,” Hongyi Xu, Yang Li, Catherine Brinson, and Wei Chen, J. Mech. Des., 2014, 136(5): 051007–051007-12.
- –2015 Editors’ Choice Paper Award: “Level Set Topology Optimization of Printed Active Composites,” Kurt Maute, Anton Tkachuk, Jiangtao Wu, H. Jerry Qi, Zhen Ding, and Martin L. Dunn, J. Mech. Des., 2015, 137(11): 111402–111402-13.
- –2016 Editors’ Choice Paper Award: “A Stiffness Formulation for Spline Joints,” J. Hong, D. Talbot, and A. Kahraman, J. Mech. Des., 2016, 138(4):043301–043301-8.
Each author of these papers will receive a plaque in recognition for their award. Also, all three papers can now be accessed FREE online at ASME’s Digital Collection homepage.
Please join me in congratulating the authors of these papers. I also would like to take this opportunity to thank all of the current and former AEs and GEs who participated in the nomination of the papers and voted on them. In particular, I want to thank the selection committee who had to carefully read through a large number of the papers and collectively make their final choices!
While I anticipate that there will be room for improvement in the selection process, I am hoping that the Editors’ Choice Paper Award becomes a JMD tradition and an annual event.
Shapour Azarm, Technical Editor
