Editorial

Welcome to Non-Destructive Testing and Evaluation of 2006, the New Year having brought a couple of changes at the journal. After many years of sterling service to the journal, Professor David Giles who was the Regional Editor for North America had to step down from this position as he returned to the UK to take up a position at Cardiff University. David will remain as an Editor based in the UK so that we can benefit from his unique expertise in magnetic based measurements. I would like to thank David for his efforts as a Regional Editor and continued support.

Stepping in to replace David as the Regional Editor for North America is Dr Todd Murray, of the Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering, Boston University. We are delighted to welcome Todd to the Editorial Board and have included a brief biography of Todd's career and activities to date after this editorial note.

Hopefully you will have found the content of the journal in 2005 both interesting and enlightening. We continue to attract International readership and the papers were submitted from various International regions. We would strongly encourage all researchers involved in non-destructive testing and evaluation to work with us by submitting their papers to the journal, so that we can give their work the international coverage and dissemination which good scientific works deserves. We will turn the process of submission through to publication around quickly and will also make papers available electronically prior to publication so that authors can have their work citable from the earliest opportunity. This year we have commissioned a couple of review papers which should appear later in the year, that we feel will become key resources for researchers.

For those who didn't know, the journal has been available on-line for some while and we would encourage institutions who do not already take the journal to consider the benefits of a subscription to the on-line version of the journal. We hope that you will continue not only to enjoy reading the journal, but that you will also find it to be an invaluable resource for your research and dissemination. We welcome comments and suggestions for improving the journal and these should be directed to the editor.

Steve Dixon

Editor-in-Chief

Nondestructive Testing and Evaluation

Department of Physics

University of Warwick

UK

Brief Biography for Todd Murray—New Regional Editor for North America

Todd Murray

Assistant Professor

Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering

Boston University

110 Cummington Street

Boston, MA 02215

USA

Tel: [phone]

Fax: [phone]

Email: [email protected]

Todd Murray received his BS in Biomedical Engineering in 1992 from Johns Hopkins University. He remained at Johns Hopkins and received his MS and PhD degrees in Materials Science and Engineering in 1995 and 1998, respectively. His PhD research was performed at the JHU Center for Nondestructive Evaluation and focused on laser array generation of ultrasound, laser generation of ultrasound in the ablative regime, and optimizing laser sources for high sensitivity laser ultrasonic systems. He then spent 1998–2001 at Northwestern University in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, first as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow and later as a Research Assistant Professor. He worked to develop optical array interferometry systems based on two-wave mixing in photorefractive crystals and performed theoretical and experimental studies of ultrasonic wave propagation in thin films. Since 2001, Dr Murray has been an Assistant Professor of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering at Boston University. He is currently the director of the Laser Acoustics Laboratory and is working to develop photothermal and photoacoustic microscopy systems for the inspection of micro- and nanoscale materials. Additional research interests include the modelling of pulsed laser generation of acoustic waves, wave propagation in complex structures, photorefractive crystal based optical sensors, and acousto-optic imaging systems for medical applications. Dr Murray is the recipient of a 2005 NSF Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award, the Boston University Technology Development Award, the Boston University SPRING Award, and a Special Service Citation from AIAA. He has chaired or co-chaired several special sessions at various conferences. Dr Murray serves as a reviewer for The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, Optics Letters, Optical Engineering, Applied Physics Letters, Research in Nondestructive Evaluation and NDT&E International and is a member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) and the Acoustical Society of America (ASA).