We are pleased to nominate Prof Chiara Bedon as a Featured Editor for the month of March 2020. Her outstanding performance as an Editor in Chief for the International Journal of Structural Glass and Advanced Materials Research is greatly cherished.

Born on April 1983, since 2014 Chiara Bedon is an Assistant Professor at University of Trieste, Department of Engineering and Architecture, Italy, where she chairs the course of “Structural Analysis”. With a MSc degree in Civil Engineering (2007), a 2nd level Master Course in Seismic Engineering (2008) and a PhD degree in Structural Engineering in 2012, she obtained in March 2017 the National Scientific Qualification (ASN) as Associate Professor (Building Constructions) from the Italian Ministry of Education, Universities and Research (MIUR).

Recipient of various grants, since 2009, she is actively involved as Team expert member / advisor or Principal Investigator for several international research projects and European networks (JRC-ERNCIP, NATO-SPS, EU-COST, etc.). Her research activity deals on the numerical and experimental analysis of structural systems mainly composed of glass, but also timber, timber-concrete or steel-concrete composites, with a careful attention for extreme loading conditions (earthquakes, impact events, fire, vibrations) and the definition / assessment of design recommendations.

She has the privilege of being authoring more than 180 scientific publications, including peer-reviewed journal papers, conference proceedings, book chapters, technical documents.

Since April 2017, Editor-in-Chief for the open access "International Journal of Structural Glass and Advanced Materials Research" (SGAMR), and she actively joins several Editorial board committees of international journals.

1. What inspired you to take up this field?
   Honestly, I started to focus my research investigations on glass structures and related issues only at the end of my MSc studies. So far, glass was already largely used in buildings, but a very few (rather null) attention was spent for it in lectures (especially in Italy). There was thus a huge need of efforts for the definition of new (still missing) or reliability assessment of existing deign approaches for a material that today is worldwide recognized as a load-bearing solution for constructions. After more than 10 years dedicated to this challenging constructional material, today I can see the results of these efforts, at several levels.
2. How has the experience been being the Editor in Chief for SGAMR?
   Being the Editor in Chief of a scientific Journal is always a challenge. This is even more true in the case of new Journals like SGAMR, where major efforts are required in the early stages of activity. In the first few weeks I have spent as the Editor in Chief for SGAMR, after accepting the invitation from Science Publications, I have immediately realized the difficulties that an early stage engineering Journal has to overcome. Luckily, today I can take advantage of a great team of Editors (and especially Associate Editors) that strongly believe in and support this project. Actually, the continuously increasing number of published papers from several international Authors that chose SGAMR for their research outcomes suggests us that we are on the right way.
3. What would you describe as your greatest achievement?
   I can say that my greatest achievement is who I am today, and everything that will follow. At the time of my University studies, I had the opportunity to freely chose my favourite topic (structural engineering), with the support of my family. After few years, my passion for those topics took the form of a job plenty of continuous challenges, satisfactions and a lot of admirable colleagues. Today, I think that I’m still privileged because I can totally merge my passion for research in the structural engineering field with my full-time working activity. Probably, few people has similar opportunities.
4. As an Editor, what do you place strong emphasis on in the publication process?
   For sure, I believe that the peer review process is an essential stage of the publication cycle. In this regard, all the manuscripts submitted SGAMR are subjected to rigorous peer review evaluations by one of our Editorial Board Members (the handling Editor), and further blind reviews by at least three external international experts. At the same time, however, we all know very well that the time required for the overall review process is also an important aspect to focus on. As such, all the SGAMR Editors agree that both the scientific quality and the review / production efficiency are the targets to privilege for our Authors. Last but not least, the open access availability of published papers is an additional important achievement.
5. Where do you see this field developing into in the next five to ten years?
   The continuous innovation in technology will certainly offer a valuable support in this field. Accordingly, there will be a continuous evolution of research outcomes, production and design.
6. Do you prefer research or teaching more?
   Research has been and will always be my passion. But teaching is also very important, thus I always try to merge both these activities and transfer this passion to the students.