In 2024, JPHE reviewers continue to make outstanding contributions to the peer review process. They demonstrated professional effort and enthusiasm in their reviews and provided comments that genuinely help the authors to enhance their work.

Hereby, we would like to highlight some of our outstanding reviewers, with a brief interview of their thoughts and insights as a reviewer. Allow us to express our heartfelt gratitude for their tremendous effort and valuable contributions to the scientific process.

January, 2024
Heba Mohtady Ali, Griffith University, Australia

February, 2024
Rebekkah Middleton, University of Wollongong, Australia

April, 2024
Uma Langkulsen, Thammasat University, Thailand

June, 2024
Nikita Lad, George Mason University, USA

July, 2024
Jarosław Mazuryk, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poland

August, 2024
Lucy Mackintosh, University of Hertfordshire, UK

December, 2024
Monica Ewomazino Akokuwebe, University of Witwatersrand, South Africa

January, 2024

Heba Mohtady Ali

Dr. Heba Mohtady Ali, a distinguished medical doctor and senior academic, brings a wealth of experience across various medical and health-related domains. She holds affiliations with Griffith University, Australia, and Zagazig University, Egypt. At Zagazig University, she is an accomplished Medical Microbiology Professor renowned for her expertise in Medical Education, Quality and Accreditation, Antimicrobial resistance and endemic microbial infections. In the past few years, as a PhD scholar pursuing her second doctorate at Griffith University, Dr. Ali has delved into the impact of disasters, particularly pandemic infections, on healthcare systems and professionals, focusing on professional competencies, education, training, and resilience. Her research employs various disciplines and conceptual and theoretical frameworks such as transformational leadership, resilience engineering, total quality management, disaster management, human immunity, and health profession education. This transdisciplinary approach synthesizes existing knowledge to understand disruptions and critical factors influencing hospital disaster resilience. Connect with Dr. Ali on LinkedIn.

A healthy peer-review system, according to Dr. Ali, is characterized by fairness, transparency, and timeliness. She thinks that it ensures impartial evaluation of submissions based on merit, with reviewers providing constructive feedback to authors. Quality control is maintained by selecting qualified reviewers, and confidentiality is upheld throughout the process. Ultimately, such a system promotes the advancement of knowledge by maintaining high standards of integrity while facilitating constructive criticism and feedback.

In Dr. Ali’s opinion, the existing peer-review system has limitations, including biases, inconsistent expertise, lack of transparency, time constraints for busy reviewers, and difficulty finding reviewers for interdisciplinary or innovative research. To improve the situation, we can try to implement double-anonymized reviews, provide reviewer training, adopt open review practices, streamline processes with technology, and foster networks to connect reviewers across disciplines.

“As an academic, I recognise the importance of knowledge dissemination, primarily through journal publications. Therefore, I allocate time for peer review as a voluntary service to academia, aiming to advance science and medicine, support the development of communities, and contribute to the progress of fellow researchers,” says Dr. Ali.

(By Lareina Lim, Brad Li)

February, 2024

Rebekkah Middleton

Associate Professor Rebekkah Middleton works at the University of Wollongong, Australia in the School of Nursing. Her professional background has enabled strong industry relationships that have brought research collaboration and opportunity to mentor and grow healthcare professionals. Her research hinges around person-centred practice, which underpins her key foci of workforce and leadership within healthcare. A/Prof. Middleton is director of a postgraduate master’s program in healthcare leadership and teaches in this space. Connect with her on X @bekkmiddle.

A/Prof. Middleton thinks that peer review ensures a rigorous process of research has been undertaken and minimises bias. The peer-review process ensures quality papers are published that have had objective critique to ensure the work is clear and rigorous, and meets certain standards and guidelines.

To make sure the review is objective, A/Prof. Middleton points out that reviewers should be blinded so that they are unable to be biased by any relationship or knowledge which may impact the reading of the work.

From a reviewer’s perspective, A/Prof. Middleton indicates that it is very important for authors to follow reporting guidelines as they write to ensure all elements of the research process are considered and reported. This enables reproduction of the research in another context, validation of results and application to other settings. It ensures a robust process of research occurs.

(by Lareina Lim, Brad Li)

April, 2024

Uma Langkulsen

Dr. Uma Langkulsen, an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Public Health, Thammasat University, Thailand, is a prominent researcher in global health. Her expertise spans climate change, air pollution, health impacts, and environmental health. With thirty-one publications, she authored multidisciplinary publications and a multi-volume book on climate change, air pollution, health impacts, and COVID-19 issues. Her research, published in prestigious journals, provides valuable insights into environmental health issues. She has dedication underscores her significant impact on global health discourse. She is recognized as an authority in the field, her work contributing to knowledge and solutions in global health. At Thammasat University, she continues to lead research initiatives, advocating for sustainable practices and policies to address pressing health challenges on a global scale, aligning with the Sustainable Development Goals.

In Dr. Langkulsen’s opinion, a good reviewer should be knowledgeable, fair, detail-oriented, and able to communicate effectively. They should provide honest feedback that helps improve the work being reviewed.

However, Dr. Langkulsen points out that the peer-review system has some drawbacks. It can be biased, slow, and sometimes misses errors. Also, not everyone can access the published work easily. “To make it better, we can encourage transparency, diversify reviewers, promote open access, and use technology to speed up the process. These changes could improve fairness, efficiency, and accessibility in scholarly publishing,” adds she.

(by Lareina Lim, Brad Li)

June, 2024

Nikita Lad

Dr. Nikita Lad earned her Ph.D. in Environmental Science and Policy from George Mason University, focusing on sustainability science, program evaluation, health equity, and social sustainability in higher education. Her dissertation led to the development of a comprehensive assessment tool for evaluating sustainability behavior, which she continues to advance in collaboration with multiple U.S. universities. Dr. Lad’s research aims to use social science methods to gain evidence-based insights for advancing environmental science, sustainability education, public health, and science policy. She utilizes extensive experience in survey development, semi-structured interviews, and statistical analysis. As a Fellow of the SDG Publishers Compact and a science policy fellow for Virginia, she has contributed to research funding insights and served as an Evaluation Consultant for the Global Sustainability Scholars Program. With a background in Regulatory Affairs, Dr. Lad combines expertise in compliance and evidence-based policymaking to strengthen her research and policy efforts. Connect with her on LinkedIn.

Dr. Lad thinks that peer review is crucial as it ensures that research is thoroughly checked before publication, preventing the dissemination of unverified or substandard work. This process upholds the integrity of the scientific record, ensuring that only rigorous, high-quality research is shared. It also acknowledges and supports the efforts of researchers who are dedicated to maintaining high standards and integrity in their work, providing a level of validation and justice for their thorough and sincere contributions. Ultimately, peer review plays a vital role in advancing trustworthy knowledge and upholding the credibility of scientific discourse.

In Dr. Lad’s opinion, when reviewing papers, reviewers must assess whether the background and need for the research are clearly articulated, including a thorough review of existing literature and how the study offers a novel contribution. They should evaluate whether the methodologies used are appropriate and rigorously applied, ensuring that the results are comprehensive and not selectively presented. This means confirming that the study does not engage in cherry-picking data but rather provides a complete and honest account of its findings. By focusing on these aspects, reviewers help maintain the quality and integrity of published research.

From a reviewer’s perspective, Dr. Lad thinks that sharing research data is important for authors, as it significantly enhances the transparency, reproducibility, and impact of scientific research. By depositing data in repositories, researchers increase the visibility of their work, as others can easily find and access the data linked to their publications. This can lead to higher citation rates and greater academic recognition. Furthermore, data sharing ensures that datasets are properly archived and preserved, allowing for long-term access and usability, even as software and formats evolve. It also reduces the workload associated with handling individual data requests by centralizing access to the data. Importantly, making data available fosters collaboration by enabling other researchers to build on existing work, integrate it with other datasets, and potentially discover new insights. Overall, data sharing supports a more open and interconnected research environment, advancing scientific progress and ensuring the integrity and credibility of research findings.

(by Lareina Lim, Brad Li)

July, 2024

Jarosław Mazuryk

Dr. Jarosław Mazuryk is an Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Physics, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań, Poland. He earned MSc degrees in Chemistry with Applied Informatics and Biotechnology in 2010 and 2011, respectively, and a PhD in Physics (Biophysics) in 2015, supported by a Foundation for Polish Science scholarship. After his PhD, he conducted postdoctoral research within Polish National Centre for Research and Development, ERA-NET and EOS consortia, focusing on peptidomimetic-based pharmaceutical regeneration of neurological disorders and WGM-assisted photonic detection of waterborne toxins using molecularly imprinted polymers. Recently, he is working at Université catholique de Louvain, Belgium on developing an optoelectronic gelatine-based chip for corneal drug screening coupled with time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry. His scientific interests include cell-cell/surface interactions, cell-based biosensors, optoelectronic biohybrids, advanced nanomaterials, single-molecule/cell and super-resolution imaging and sensing applied to lab-on-a-chip theragnostic, translational and personalized medicine, and precision environmental research. Learn more about him here.

“Reviewers should approach manuscript with a critical but supportive and curious mindset, searching for the originality, solid methodology, clarity, and significance of the research,” says Dr. Mazuryk. In his opinion, by verifying the data and conclusions, the reviewer should pay attention to the comprehension of the problem and the precision of the writing. Aside maintaining strict confidentiality, ethical issues, including plagiarism, auto citation, personal biases, and conflict of interests, should be carefully examined. Moreover, reviewers should focus on the constructive feedback that acknowledges both the paper’s strengths and areas for improvement, rather than focusing on its flaws and limitations. Finally, the review’s primary goal should aim at improving the quality of the research, rather than that of the paper, thus help it to contribute to the progress of scientific knowledge.

According to Dr. Mazuryk, data sharing is the essence of the research work. It provides transparency that is crucial for research reproducibility and science itself. Moreover, by sharing raw qualitative and quantitative data, the authors show their open-mindedness and humility for falsification of their work which stimulate the others to do the same, thus ensuring the ethical work of the entire scientific community. Finally, sharing data is inspiring as it shows the newcomers what the edge-cutting research really means and what is required to convince the society and stakeholders about the importance of pursuing fundamental and applicable research.

“Contribution of the reviewers to keeping the integration and advancement of the scientific research and society is priceless. Although the peer-review process is confidential, thus oftentimes overlooked, the reviewers’ thoughtfulness and unbiased approach to the paper’s quality and ethics is fundamental. The reviewing should be processed with curiosity and care, which shall be fruitful and inspiring both for submitting authors and reviewer’s own research,” says Dr. Mazuryk.

(by Lareina Lim, Brad Li)

August, 2024

Lucy Mackintosh

Lucy Mackintosh is a health researcher at the University of Hertfordshire (UK), exploring different aspects of patient experience of kidney care. She has a background in psychology and is currently doing a PhD investigating the impact of COVID-19 on patient experience of kidney care. Current projects include analysing the patient free-text comments in response to validated Kidney Patient Reported Experience Measure (UK) and is in the early stages of a project looking to develop and validate a Kidney Patient Reported Experience Measure for paediatrics. Learn more about her here.

In Lucy’s opinion, peer review is essential in maintaining the high-quality standards of work being disseminated. It allows for quality checking in an unbiased and constructive way, ensuring the methods and analysis are rigorous and the impact of such research is clear.

Lucy indicates that a destructive review is one where the feedback is not specific, clear and constructive to benefit the article. This can be caused due to biased reviewer or a reviewer who lacks expertise in the field of research.

Data sharing is prevalent in scientific writing in recent years. Lucy believes it is helpful for data to be shared because there are multiple ways in which data can be looked at and analyzed and sharing data allows for others to explore different avenues within the data. Additionally, researchers can repeat the same analysis with the same data to ensure for validity and reliability, or when reproducing the same study can check for homogeneity between the two data sets.

(by Lareina Lim, Brad Li)

December, 2024

Monica Ewomazino Akokuwebe

Dr. Monica Ewomazino Akokuwebe is a Sociologist and Demographer with nine years of post-PhD experience. She is a Senior Research Fellow with the SAMRC Developmental Pathways for Health Research Unit, University of Witwatersrand, South Africa. She has particular specialities in life course epidemiology, social gerontology, and psych demographics (grouping psychographics and demographics to determine behaviours and motivations). She also has extensive experience in mixed methods in analysing large-scale, nationally representative retrospective and prospective datasets. With a particular focus, her current research is hinged on a life course approach to chronic disease epidemiology. She particularly has a skill in developing implementation science protocols using the life course health development (LCHD), notably in the form of primordial prevention, the prevention of exposure to risk factors and designing prevention strategies for chronic diseases through multi-level health development pathways. She aspires to build evidence that impacts chronic disease management, self-efficacy, and quality of life and shapes health distributions within and across African populations. Learn more about her here.

Dr. Akokuwebe reckons that a healthy peer-review system is fundamental for maintaining the integrity, quality, and credibility of academic and professional research. It relies on the selection of reviewers who are experts in the relevant field, ensuring that their evaluations are based on thorough knowledge and unbiased judgment. Transparency and accountability in the process are crucial, with clear communication of guidelines and expectations for both reviewers and authors. Reviewers must provide constructive and specific feedback aimed at improving the work, fostering a collaborative and supportive environment for knowledge advancement. Anonymity and confidentiality are essential to prevent bias and protect intellectual property, while ethical standards must be upheld to prevent any form of research misconduct. Inclusivity and diversity in the selection of reviewers enhance the process by incorporating various perspectives and reducing potential biases. Continuous evaluation and improvement of the peer-review process are vital, with feedback from all participants used to identify areas for enhancement and regular training for reviewers to ensure best practices are followed. By embodying these elements, the peer-review system can effectively uphold the quality and integrity of research, contributing to the advancement of knowledge across various fields.

According to Dr. Akokuwebe, minimizing potential biases during the peer-review process requires a multifaceted approach. One of her key strategies is maintaining anonymity through double-blind reviews, where both reviewers and authors remain unaware of each other's identities, reducing the influence of personal biases. She believes that diversity among reviewers is also crucial, as it brings a range of perspectives and minimizes the risk of homogenous thinking. And she tries to make sure that there is clear and transparent guidelines that help reviewers focus on the quality and integrity of the work rather than personal preferences. To her, training reviewers on recognizing and mitigating their biases is another essential step, fostering awareness and encouraging objective evaluations. Finally, she thinks open dialogue and feedback among reviewers, authors, and editors can identify and address biases, enhancing the fairness and credibility of the peer-review process. By integrating these practices, the peer-review system can strive towards more equitable and accurate assessments.

“To all the reviewers who tirelessly dedicate their time and expertise behind the scenes, your contributions are invaluable in advancing scientific progress. Your thorough evaluations and constructive feedback ensure the integrity and quality of research, helping to propel the frontiers of knowledge. Your commitment and diligence often go unnoticed, yet they are the foundation upon which robust and credible science is built. Thank you for your unwavering support and dedication to the scientific community. Your efforts make a profound difference,” says Dr. Akokuwebe.

(by Lareina Lim, Brad Li)