Call For Nominations: 2026 Rising Stars in Materials Science

Help us celebrate the early career researchers broadening the horizons of materials science by submitting a nomination for the 2026 Rising Stars in Materials Science!

The 2026 Rising Stars in Materials Science Special Issue will showcase original, cutting-edge, and impactful research from early-career researchers driving change in materials science. The scope of this Special Issue is intentionally broad and aims to highlight the researchers conducting work at the forefront of their field as well as their research.

Those who are selected as Rising Stars will be invited to submit a Perspective, Review, Tutorial, Letter, or Research Article to ACS Materials Au. These Rising Star publications will appear in issues throughout 2026 and then be collected in a Special Issue at the end of the year, which will be widely promoted. The work will be highlighted as a significant contribution from a researcher who is breaking new ground in their field. As ACS Materials Au is fully open access, these papers will be available to anyone, at anytime, anywhere in the world.

ACS Materials Au publishes work at the forefront of fundamental and applied research, and at the interface between materials and other disciplines, such as chemistry, engineering and biology.

Areas of interest include, but are not limited to:

• Design, synthesis, characterization, and evaluation of forefront and emerging materials
• Understanding structure, property, performance relationships and their underlying mechanisms
• Development of materials for energy, environmental, biomedical, electronic, and catalytic applications

Organizing Editors

Prof. Stephanie Brock, Deputy Editor, ACS Materials Au
Wayne State University, United States

Prof. Dr. Maksym Kovalenko, Associate Editor, ACS Materials Au
ETH Zürich, Switzerland

Prof. Mary Ann Meador, Associate Editor, ACS Materials Au
University of Akron, United States

How to Nominate

We welcome nominations (including self-nominations) to be featured in this Special Issue until October 20, 2025.

We are seeking early-career investigators who are within the first eight years of their initial independent appointment (Assistant Professor or equivalent) and are conducting research at the forefront of their field. Allowances are made for those who took career breaks for any reason; please reach out if you have any questions regarding eligibility.

Please fill out and submit the nomination form below. If you have any questions regarding suitability, please contact Prof. Stephanie Brock at brock-office@materialsau.acs.org.

Submitting to the Special Issue

Researchers who are selected as 2026 Rising Stars will be notified by email.

We welcome submissions for this Special Issue through June 1, 2026. For more information on submission requirements, please visit the journal's Author Guidelines page.

Papers accepted for the 2026 Rising Stars Special Issues will be available ASAP (as soon as publishable) online. After all submissions have been published, they will then be compiled online into a Special Issue. Manuscripts submitted for consideration will undergo the full rigorous peer review process expected from ACS journals.

Open Access

ACS Materials Au is a fully open-access journal, which means your work will be immediately and freely available for anyone to read in perpetuity. We recognize that different authors have different levels of access to funding for Article Publication Charges (APCs). Therefore, evaluation of nominations will be entirely based on merit and not on financial resources.

We offer a range of options to support authors with open-access publishing, including through the ACS special country pricing policy, ACS institutional open access agreements, and a limited number of APC waivers, which can be offered at the discretion of the editor at the point of invitation.