Manolis Antonoyiannakis

I am a Senior Associate Editor at Physical Review B, and a Bibliostatistics Analyst at the American Physical Society. 

I have extensive experience on scholarly publishing and research assessment, having handled the peer review of more than 10,000 manuscripts in the Physical Review journals (PRB, PRL, PRX, and PR Research). I am interested in the science of science, information science, and scientometrics. More specifically, I am interested in how data science can be used to study scientific productivity, creativity, behavior, and impact, and I am keen to contribute toward a more sensible use of scholarly metrics that is anchored on solid statistical grounds.

Background

I studied physics at Royal Holloway, University of London (BS, 1992), the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (MS, 1994), and Imperial College London (PhD, 1998). 

Professionally, I have carved a serendipitous and somewhat unconventional career path. After my PhD (1998), I went back to my native Crete and at first taught high-school physics, while volunteering and organizing on animal welfare issues. Soon after I shifted from teaching physics to translating physics & mathematics university textbooks for Crete University Press in Heraklion. My next move was from a university press to an academic journal publisher—and from Crete to New York—as I took up an editorial position with Physical Review B (2003), and subsequently Physical Review Letters (2007), where I handled manuscripts primarily on nanophotonics, metamaterials, plasmonics, microscopy, acoustics, solar cell physics and topological insulators. In 2008, and while on partial leave from PRL, I spent an 18-month sabbatical in Europe where I shifted my focus from the peer review of research papers to that of research proposals, as I advised on science policy issues the President, Prof. F. C. Kafatos, of the European Research Council in London & Brussels. In 2010 I returned to being a full-time PRL editor, moving on to PRX (2013) and more recently to PRB (2014). I now also spend 10% of my time as a bibliostatistics analyst for the APS. Throughout these twists and turns in my career, the two constant themes are the communication and the assessment of science. 

Research Interests

I am interested in the science of science, information science, and scientometrics. More specifically, I am interested in how data science can be used to study scientific productivity, creativity, behavior, and impact. For example: 

• Enhancing peer review using data analytics and statistical inference 

• Metrics—and their limitations—that quantify the impact of scientific research (journals, groups, individuals)

• Sociological effects and reward mechanisms that influence research

• Scientific networks

• Behavioral studies of scientists

I am based in the New York metropolitan area. 

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