PNNL

Venky Prabhakaran, a chemical engineer at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), joined the editorial board of Scientific Reports. In this role, he will focus on materials and energy topics.

Scientific Reports is an open-access Nature portfolio journal. It covers original research on a broad range of topics across the natural sciences, psychology, medicine, and engineering. A goal of Scientific Reports is to enable research to “reach more people and maximize its impact.”

At Scientific Reports, Prabhakaran will focus on managing the peer review process for manuscripts within his technical area. He brings expertise in electrochemistry and the science of interfaces in energy related research to the role.

“Being able to rationally design next-generation sustainable energy related technologies is critically dependent on understanding the chemistry that occurs at novel electrodes and devising pathways to control them,” said Prabhakaran. “I’m very excited to work with Scientific Reports to identify and help with communicating impactful research in this field to the scientific community. The journal publishes high-quality research accessible to all.”

Prabhakaran joined PNNL in 2014 as a postdoctoral researcher and received the M.T. Thomas Award for his work. His research focuses on understanding molecular and nanoscale processes that occur at electrochemical interfaces. His work has applications to separations science, energy storage systems, and corrosion science. Prabhakaran uses ion soft landing to prepare precise interfaces that are used to study complex phenomena in well-defined systems. He also serves on the editorial board of the recently launched journals Journal of Ionic Liquids and Frontiers in Energy Research-Nano Energy.

Prabhakaran holds a PhD in chemical engineering from the Illinois Institute of Technology and a BTech in chemical and electrochemical engineering from the Central Electrochemical Research Institute in India.