As Stu announced about 3 months ago, I’m leaving Nature Chemistry – today!

It’s been a real privilege to be involved right from the start – when we hadn’t published any papers and the submission system was even open. The journal was a blank slate. Of course, that blank slate was pretty soon filled with papers, of which I handled my fair share. And that’s where the real privilege comes in: being the first person other than the researchers themselves to read some wonderful pieces of chemistry. The best part of this job is reading papers that make you go “Wow” – and then sharing them with the world!

One of the other highlights is going out to conferences and meeting people. I’ve been fortunate to go to some fantastic conferences, meet some chemistry heroes and visit incredible institutions. Although not quite as personal, I feel like I’ve ‘met’ lots of bloggers and tweeters through their posts and tweets, and having the ‘chore’ of reading tons of blogs so I can write blogroll every month has been extremely enjoyable.

So I’d like to thank all the authors, referees, people I’ve talked to at conferences, people who’ve entertained me in their departments, and all the bloggers and tweeters who make this job as fun as it is!

And of course, I have to thank the rest of the team, who’ve been a pleasure to work with! And that includes the people who aren’t on that webpage, our wonderful production team.

See you all over at Chemistry World!

Neil