What do team sports and journal publishing have in common? In team sports there are the players on the field and a support crew on the sidelines. The game is won both by the skill of the players and the efforts of the extended team. This is also how a journal works. The authors are the star players. Unlike in sport, our referees help improve articles with constructive suggestions and extensive feedback, playing a role closer to a technical coach. The editors handling the manuscripts are individual coaches set on getting the articles in the best shape possible. The chief editor plays the role of head coach and manager overseeing the tactics, training, game(issue) plans, making sure that the team works as a whole. Like the technical staff on sports teams, we also have members who make sure everything runs smoothly, everyone delivers and the players’ needs are met. In our team these essential roles are carried out by the production editor, art editor, editorial assistant and subeditor. But a team is not only about the roles, but also the people who fill them. Here is who we are, in our own words.

Ankita Anirban. I’m a senior editor and I cover condensed-matter physics. In addition to commissioning and editing Reviews, I also handle (and write) some of the news and opinion pieces. My favourite part of the job is going to conferences to meet researchers and find out about exciting new results.

Credit: Springer Nature Ltd.

Zoe Budrikis. I’m a senior editor handling soft matter, fluids and complex systems, among other topics — much of what I cover is driven by my interest in the physics of the everyday. I also love seeing examples of the physics community caring about big problems like how to solve the climate emergency or how to give equal opportunities to researchers worldwide, so one of my favourite parts of my job is working with authors who are helping make these things happen.

Charlotte Ennis. I am the editorial assistant and handle things like copyright permissions and the communication with authors and peer-reviewers. I really like seeing the range of different figures that feature in the journal.

Melanie Gardeur. I’m the production editor and my main role is to oversee the production process from acceptance to publication. I work closely with the editorial team and our external vendors to ensure that the content is published online smoothly. I love working on the journal and my favourite article is the Viewpoint ‘From physics to art and back’ because it shows the importance of applied physics in the conservation of our cultural heritage.

Iulia Georgescu. I’m the chief editor and my job is to oversee the smooth running of the journal. This means that I am commissioning, editing and writing, but also planning future issues, exploring new areas, thinking of new ways we can engage with the scientific community and developing new content types. I love identifying emerging topics and being able to sneak in geeky content in the journal — our readers might have noticed a few Star Trek references, my best achievement in this respect so far being this piece on quantum teleportation.

Susanne Harris. I am a senior art editor and I work on the visual side of the journal, creating figures, graphics, covers, posters and web images. I am the person who tells editors, who then tell authors, “you can’t have so many colours in your figures, it’s not part of our Reviews style”! I’ve been here a long time and I think it’s because of the people, they’re a good bunch and I really enjoy working with them.

Kevin Sheridan. I’m the subeditor and my job to ensure that all of the editorial content that appears in the journal is readable, grammatically correct, accurate, internally consistent and conforms to Nature Portfolio house style. My favourite part of working on the journal is having the opportunity to work with the always fascinating, and sometimes delightfully offbeat, magazine content that the journal publishes — see, for example, recent Editorials on the physics of breakfast and unusual noise sources in physics experiments.