Professor Colm-cille Caulfield, Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Fluid Mechanics (JFM) discusses his first published paper in JFM. Colm discusses his relationship with the journal from his student days to his current post as E-i-C.

Colm also give us insight into changes that have occurred in the publishing process, from drafting and editing figures for paper to new interactive advances like JFM Notebooks.

Transcript follows below…

Filmed and Produced by Tom Crawford an Early-Career Teaching and Outreach Fellow in Mathematics at St Edmund Hall and Social Media Editor for JFM.

“to go from having a jagged edged figure that needed to be dealt with by a draftsman… to now this seamless online submission… Even as the medium has changed, the message has remained.”

Transcript:

When I was doing my PhD in the late 80s, of course, the Journal of Fluid Mechanics was the journal of record that I was looking at and reading papers from. I do remember looking at the new volumes when they came out sort of thumbing through them, and I actually remember, even before that, when I was an undergraduate actually seeing JFM in the University library, because I was interested in fluid mechanics. In terms of being interested in cars and planes and such like. Why footballs curved, swimming… these were the sort of things I knew of fluid mechanics. When I started my PhD, it was then that was that clearly the aspiration was to publish in the journal.

Just before this interview, I looked back. I knew my first paper had come out in January 1994; I think in volume 258. Actually, looking back, it was submitted almost precisely 30 years ago! It’s incredible, 30 years ago, next week is when I submitted it, and it a very different era, right?

So, you printed it out. it was printed out and had to be posted to Cambridge. The figures were quite rough, versions were originally produced by a very old-fashioned printer. Then they were smartened up by a draftsperson in the department that made the curves smooth and so on, because it’s a stability calculation. The curves of constant growth rates were smoothed out. Then you just waited for an envelope to come with the reviews and then respond to the reviews.

I do remember the buzz, the excitement of getting the first reviews and having the dawning realization that I could probably deal with these reports, and it wasn’t being rejected out of hand. And then, with that being confirmed, when the final thing came out, it was just an amazing, amazing feeling. To actually see it, you know, physically in print: my name there in the in the journal, was just really… it really sticks with me very much.

I have been fortunate and, and having, you know, I’ve worked with many very, very talented people, and I’ve always encouraged their aims to publish in the journal. So, so there’s been several subsequent or many subsequent experiences like that, it’s always been part of my professional career. Even before my involvement with the editorial board, I would always look at the new volume coming out and then do and then subsequently, look at the webpage about when the new volumes were coming.

I got my present academic position here in Cambridge in 2005. After a few years, I was sitting in my office one day and Grae [Woster] comes down and talks to me and asked me would I be interested in effectively doing the market research for the ‘Focus on Fluids’ idea. So he asked me, ‘Would I be interested in launching it and to then kind of do a dry run: look at the previous year, and try and identify, once a month, was there a paper that seemed exciting that you might want to get another author to put into context and explain where it was. And that just seemed so interesting to me because I’ve always been very interested in fluid mechanics as a subject. It wasn’t just the areas of research I’m particularly interested in: I really enjoy going to conferences, I really enjoy the fluids, seminars in the various departments I’ve been in and hearing about other areas. So that sort of overview finding something interesting in bio fluid mechanics or in turbulence or a non-Newtonian flow, it was really an interesting phenomenon to do that dry run and then for a few years to actually work on the Focus on Fluids program. But then Grae, in his wisdom, thought that it was something that you didn’t want to do forever. It was sensible to have a new viewpoint. And it was proved exactly right because then Anne Juel took over from me and did a great job on the Focus on Fluids inevitably having a slightly different viewpoint about how to do it. And of course, Anne is now a member of the editorial board and Jerome Neufeld has been taken on as the next Focus on Fluids editor. And I think that’s a very sensible idea to have that turnover. So, I was then a Rapids editor for a while. Handling the papers as they’re being published and finding referees and so on. Then in, in 2020, Grae told me that Paul Linden was going to step back from being one of the deputy editors, and would I be interested in being one of the deputy editors? And of course, I said ‘Yes!’. And so that basically turned out to be a kind of apprenticeship to be the deputy editor for a while. And then when Grae decided to step down, I became the editor.

Effectively a 30-year relationship with the journal from the that first paper on paper. And now it’s just so interesting to think that, you know, the last paper that I submitted to JFM, actually, a wonderful PhD student: Sam Lewin and I submitted to JFM is a paper that has this Notebook functionality within it. So, to go from having a jagged edged figure that needed to be dealt with by a draftsman in order to of good enough the quality to be in JFM. And, I remember, it was really kind of a struggle to get the LaTex and so on in the early 90s… to now this seamless online submission. And the biggest issue is about managing to have the file of the right size with the data embedded in it to be able to be uploaded.

It’s really interesting how, while the technology has changed, the value of the academic publication and the interest in reading those articles has kind of stayed the same.

Even as the medium has changed, the message has remained.

*Articles referred to in this video:

Multiple linear instability of layered stratified shear flow, Colm-cille P. Caulfield, Journal of Fluid Mechanics, Volume 258, 10 January 1994, pp. 255 – 285,

A data-driven method for modeling dissipation rates in stratified turbulence, Caulfield, Colm-cille; Lewin, Sam; de Bruyn Kops, Steve; Portwood, Gavin, https://doi.org/10.1017/jfm.2023.679

Also shown: Introducing JFM Notebooks, Charles Meneveau and Colm-cille P. Caulfield, Journal of Fluid Mechanics, Volume 952, 10 December 2022, E1