Changing of the guard

After three years as the European Editor of iSGTW, I'm sad to announce that I'm moving on. But I'm not moving far. From my apartment near CERN in the French countryside, I'm going to batten down the hatches and finish off my book on endangered wildlife in Indochina in the next couple of months.

What a time it has been. Who would have thought reporting on computing would mean writing articles about the ‘epigonion’ – an ancient Greek musical instrument – dinosaur locomotion and predicting burglaries? Or that scientists could prevent piracy off the coast of Somalia using computing to analyze satellite images? Plus, who could forget asking the iSGTW readers to vote in a Matel campaign to make the next Barbie a computer engineer? And, as the picture shows, it worked. Barbie's next career is as a computer engineer.

It’s hard to believe that the time has gone by so quickly! On the other hand, when I tally up all the things we’ve seen, covered, and done – the special issues, the LHC startup, the relaunch, the Live Chat, the new components of the magazine, all the posters, trips, and foreign cities – it’s hard to believe so much was crammed into so little time. When I look through my files, I see photos of the iSGTW team in every place from Taiwan to Sweden, and many points in-between.

Please know that whatever I have managed to accomplish as European editor in that time, it’s all been with the help of an extremely talented group of individuals, on both sides of the Atlantic, who I am glad to count as my friends.

New editor: Jacqui Hayes

Jacqui Hayes is the new European editor, based at CERN in Geneva. Jacqui joins us from the Australian science magazine Cosmos, where she was deputy editor and online editor. She has a science degree from the University of Sydney, and a graduate diploma in science communication from the Australian National University.

The diploma, nicknamed the ‘Science Circus’, takes students to rural and remote communities, where they let off water rockets, explode balloons and make kids’ hair stand on end (using electricity, of course). Jacqui is the third editor who has joined the ranks of iSGTW after studying or working in science communication at ANU, after Christy Burne and myself. We’re not sure what that says about the Aussies … but if you think you know, be sure to tell Jacqui.

Jacqui has also made short films for high-school physics students, won Magazine of the Year (2009) for Cosmos, broadcast messages from the public to the nearest Earth-like planet, Gliese 581d, and won people's choice for best online magazine from the British Institute of Physics for Cosmos Online.

Whoever you are, and from wherever you’re reading this, the iSGTW team is always keen to hear your story ideas, feedback or any other contributions. Email the editors, Miriam Boon and Jacqui Hayes.