Publisher Profiles

Dr. Hari Singh Nalwa, President and CEO of American Scientific Publishers (www.aspbs.com), made a major splash in the reference community in 1999, when Academic Press published his Handbook of Nanostructured Materials and Nanotechnology, a five-volume set that received the Association of American Publishers’ "Award of Excellence." And since founding American Scientific Publishers in 2000 he has been devoted to documenting a variety of technical fields, most notably nanotechnology. One indication of his success and importance in this endeavor can be gleaned from a quick glance through his latest catalogue: no less than seven different Nobel Laureates have provided Introductions, endorsements, or favorable reviews for his publications.

In 2002 he published the Handbook of Polyelectrolytes and Their Applications in three volumes, as well as Noise and Fluctuations in Electronic Devices and Magnetic Nanostructures (a second edition of which will be issued this year), which were followed in 2003 by several more closely focused work on nanotechnology: Molecular Nanoelectronics; Nanoclusters and Nanocrystals; Handbook of Organic-Inorganic Hybrid Materials and Nanocomposites; Synthesis, Functionalization and Surface Treatment of Nanoparticles; and Quantum Dots and Nanowires.

In 2005 American Scientific Publishers issued its most successful, and most highly-acclaimed, work to date: the Encyclopedia of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, in ten volumes. John C. Teleha, in announcing for the American Society for Engineering Education USA that Dr. Singh’s work had won the 2005 "Best Reference Work" award, said, "The Encyclopedia of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology proves to be a definitive tool that links both the novice and expert researcher to understandable articles and matches the caliber of past recipients of [the award]." The Encyclopedia of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology also received the 2005 "Outstanding Academic Title" award from CHOICE magazine. The field of nanotechnology is, of course, constantly evolving, and Dr. Singh is not one to let it slip by unnoticed: he has plans to issue fifteen supplementary volumes of all-new material in the near future.

Dr. Nalwa’s publishing program has also encompassed the medical field, where he has published Cancer Nanotechnology; Nanoparticles for Pharmaceutical Applications; Nanotoxicology; and the Handbook of Nanostructured Biomaterials and Their Applications in Nanobiotechnology, Visions of the Cell Nucleus. ASP’s most recent works in this field are the Handbook of Particulate Drug Delivery and Emerging Technologies in Breast Imaging and Mammography, both published in 2008.

He has been no less active in the engineering field, where he has published Engineering the Grid; Intelligent Multimedia Computing Science; Engineering Usability; and Embedded Systems in 2008.

Several other works—such as the Encyclopedia of Sensors in ten volumes and Handbook of Theoretical and Computational Nanotechnology in ten volumes, both published in 2006, as well as Bottom-up Nanofabrication (six volumes) and Handbook of Nanoceramics and Their Based Nanodevices (five volumes), both 2008--are further prime examples of the very active Major Reference Works (MRW) initiative at ASP.

Some of his other 2008 publications include the Handbook of Organic Electronics and Photonics in three volumes, Quantum Chemical Calculations of Surfaces and Interfaces of Materials; Doped Nanomaterials and Nanodevices in three volumes; and Polymer Nanocomposites and Their Applications, among others. Details of the aforementioned titles, his various works on holography, liquefied rare gasses, polymer optical fibers, biodegradable polymeric materials, energy storage applications, electrochemical nanotechnology, semiconductor nanostructures, sensors, and a number of related journals published by ASP are available on ASP’s web site.

A work that promises to have a significant impact on the future direction of these fields is Nanoscale Science and Engineering Education, edited by Aldrin E. Sweeney and Sudipta Seal, which ASP published this year. In it a host of contributors address the question of current efforts and future directions in science education beginning at the K-12 level and continuing through undergraduate and post-graduate education.

Dr. Nalwa’s background has eminently suited him to this ambitious publishing program. Dr. Nalwa received a master’s degree in Organic Chemistry from the Indian Institute of Technology at Roorkee (formerly the University of Roorkee) in 1977 and completed his doctorate (PhD) in Polymer Science at the Indian Institute of Technology in New Delhi in 1983. He served as the Head of Department and R&D Manager at Ciba Specialty Chemical Corporation in the U.S. and a staff scientist at the Hitachi Research Laboratory, Hitachi Ltd., in Japan from 1990 to 1999. While working at Hitachi Ltd., he was also concurrently an Honorary Visiting Professor at the Indian Institute of Technology in New Delhi, India.

Dr. Nalwa has authored over 150 scientific articles, twenty-five book chapters and has been granted eighteen patents in the field of electronic and photonic materials and their based devices; he has also edited a hundred books for the scientific community. He was the founder and Editor-in-Chief of the "Journal of Porphyrins and Phthalocyanines" (John Wiley) from 1997 to 2000. He is also the founder and Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology (www.aspbs.com/jnn) in 2001 as well as in 2007, and Editor-in-Chief of the journal Advanced Science Letters, currently published by American Scientific Publishers. He has been on the editorial boards of several other international journals as well a referee for many scientific journals; he has served on the organizing committees of many international scientific conferences; and he has been cited in the Who’s Who in Science and Engineering, Who’s Who in America, Who’s Who in the World. Dr. Nalwa is also listed in the Dictionary of International Biography and 2000 Outstanding Intellectuals of the 21st Century with Order of Excellence and Top 100 Scientists-2008 (International Biographical Centre, Cambridge, England).

Dr. Nalwa’s American Scientific Publishers has established itself as a force in the international scientific community, and we look forward to his continued contributions to the literature of that community.