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For the past few years, I have opened this piece with a few comments about our collective challenges with the pandemic—this year is no different. In talking with our authors, editors, and many National Association of Biology Teachers (NABT) colleagues, I know we all have stories about how the pandemic challenges have impacted our teaching, interactions with students, and their responses to instruction. Though things seem to be improving in all three areas, I suspect that our full recovery is still ahead of us.As far as The American Biology Teacher (ABT) is concerned, we have turned a corner in one regard and still have some work to do in others. First the good news. In 2023 we saw the number of articles submitted bounce back almost to pre-pandemic levels, and for some reason that I cannot explain, our acceptance rate last year approached 90%, up from an average of about 70%. Wow! This is very likely because our reviewing editors examine the comments from two to three peer reviews and collate them into just one list of necessary edits, clarifications, and improvements that we send to our authors. This makes it quite easy for authors to make revisions and submit a new and improved manuscript. One area that has not bounced back is the time in review. Honestly, it takes quite a bit of time to get reviews back from reviewers to share with authors. As a peer-reviewed journal, we want to hear from three reviewers for most submissions and two for the shorter Tips, Tricks & Techniques articles. Unfortunately, these reviews do come in most cases more slowly than we would like. As an all-volunteer group, we continue to appreciate the efforts of everyone involved in publishing our nine annual issues.I am always surprised when I note the number of individuals who make ABT possible. I am delighted to continue working with our managing editor, Valerie Haff, who remains a calming and efficient presence as she guides accepted articles into their final print form. Valerie has also expanded her role this year to include the work of copyediting for the journal. She is joined by the work of graphic designer Michelle Finney, and the entire publication team at University of California Press.Our ABT team includes a set of well-established reviewing editors including Kate Walker, Emily Weigel, Julie Minbiole, and Suann Yang, with Julie recently taking on the additional responsibly of working with photographers to provide teachable moments with instructive cover descriptions. I enjoy seeing my images on many of our covers but that is not my editorial desire. We simply do not receive enough bio-centric images, so if you have something that we might feature on the cover, let us know. Our book review editors, Kirstin Milks and Frank Brown Cloud continue to do an amazing job with this section even as Kirstin steps into the role of incoming NABT President! Jeffrey Sack singlehandedly edits and writes many of the Classroom Materials and Media Reviews. Our long-time Sacred Bovines columnist Douglas Allchin contributed four interesting essays in 2023. This year he has been joined by James Morris, Biology Professor at Brandies University, writing a new column of reflections we call Sandwalking in honor of the thinking path that Darwin trod for decades in the field and woods behind Down House. We are now considering options for yet another columnist (or group of columnists) who might write from classroom perspectives about the vital and interesting work of sharing the science of biology with students. We are working toward the goal of having three regular ABT columns each published three times per year.As I conclude, let me thank the many authors who contributed about 110 manuscripts in 2023 and the more than 200 reviewers who looked at every submission and offered feedback, raising our acceptance rate by working together to turn good ideas into great ones. Therefore, NABT and the editorial team of ABT would like to acknowledge and sincerely thank all those individuals listed here for the thoughtful reviews of manuscripts contributed this past year. We look forward to continued support in 2024.Kim Achilly, Adam Ahlers, Noveera Ahmed, Shazia Ahmed, David Allard, Christine Ambrosino, Revathi Ananthakrishnan, Emily Argo, Rabia Arif, Daniel Aruscavage, Caryn Babaian, Stacy Badman, Deana Baker, Tara Bal, Meena Balgopal, Michael Baltzley, Rob Barber, Elizabeth Barnes, Andrew Bartlow, Roberta Batorsky, Dale Beach, Matthew Benus, Douglas Bernstein, Mark Bland, José Ramón Blas Pastor, Kevin Bonney, Carol Bourke, Larry Bowman, Glenn Branch, Stan Braude, Eric Brenner, Steven D. Brewer, Rachel Bricklin, Carrie Bucklin, Stephen Burnett, Jungho Byeon, Pat Calie, Joseph Calmer, Grant Casady, Merri Lynn Casem, Bill Cavanagh, Peter Cavnar, Angela Chapman, Emine ÇİL, Eliezer Cocoletzi, Joel Cohen, Laura Conde-Ferráez, Sandi Connelly, Robert Cooper, Lirio Cosme Junior, Cassy Cozine, Samantha Crowe, Tamrya d'Artenay, Rebekka Darner, Lauri Davis, Elizabeth Davis-Berg, Peggy Deichstetter, Thomas Edison dela Cruz, Rebecca DeLozier, Meredith Dorner, Brian Drayton, Derek Dube, Kathryn Dugan, Patrick Edwards, Kirk T Ehmsen, Nancy Elwess, Amanda Fisher, Robert Fitak, Christine Fleet, Kathryn Flinn, Samantha Fowler, Herb Fynewever, Brian Gibbens, Patrick Goff, Roger Gold, Teresa Golden, Urszula Golebiewska, Bob Gotwals, Harold Grau, Christine Gray, Maria Greene, Emma Grigg, Matthew Grilliot, Joan Griswold, Stephanie Gutzler, Paul Guy, Heesoo Ha, Abigail Hafer, Sarah Haines, David Hale, Matthew Heard, William Heyborne, Phyllis Higley, Cheryl Hill, Robert Hirsch, Jay Hodgson, Natalia Hubbs, Kristin Hudlow, Sirin Ilkorucu, Erika Iyengar, Jamie Jensen, David Joyner, Robert Kao, Vedham Karpakakunjaram, Martin Kelly, William Kimler, Melissa Kjelvik, Yi Kong, Michele Korb, Melissa Kosinski-Collins, William Kroen, Shawn E Krosnick, Amy Kulesza, Dr. Damaris-Lois Lang, Ryan Langendorf, Yevgeniya Lapik, Cathy Lee, Qin Leng, Wendy Leuenberger, Sean Leugers, Daniel Levin, Debra Linton, Madelene Loftin, Krista Lucas, Karen Lucci, Steven Lysne, Brett Malas, Seth Manthey, Pamela Marshall, Scott Mateer, Shana McAlexander, Deanna McClung, Kessler McCoy-Simandle, Anneke Metz, Julie Minbiole, Heather Minges Wols, Monica Mobley, Shabnam Mohammadi, Jennifer Mook, Kelly Moore, Tami Mysliwiec, Troy Nash, Traci Ness, Alana Newell, Jason Niedermeyer, Kevin Niemi, Fran Norflus, Priscilla Nyamai, Kerry O'Brien, Elizabeth Paine, Darlene Panvini, Christopher Paradise, Keith Pecor, Karen Perlmeter, Jay Phelan, Helen Pigage, Rachel Pigg, Michael Plotkin, DorothyBelle Poli, Supaporn Porntrai, Sandra Porter, Kristine Prahl, Christine Preston, Rebecca Price, Annie Prud'homme-Genereux, Catherine Quinlan, Vanessa Quinn, Rosanne Quinnell, Kimberly Regier, Shelby Riskin, Rachel Robson, Vikki Rodgers, David Rudge, Claudia Russo, Xana Sá Pinto, Jeffrey Sack, Andi Rahmat Saleh, Cheston Saunders, Stephen Saupe, Molly Selba, Alexandre Pedro Selvatti, Ashley Shaloo, Yukti Sharma, Mark Shotwell, Scott Stein, Paul Strode, David Stronck, Parker Stuart, Gerald Summers, Milind Suraokar, Cynthia Surmacz, Agnieszka Szarecka, Rachel Thiet, Aimee Thomas, Gretchen Thornsberry, Stephen Traphagen, Sarah Urban, Jill Vidoni, Julio Cesar Voltolini, Miryam Wahrman, Pat Waller, Peggy Ward, Samuel Wells, Tim Werner, Alexander Werth, Melissa Wessel, Dave Wessner, Allison Wiedemeier, David Wollert, Nicole Wonderlin, Wenyuan Yang, Chris Young
William F. McComas (Thu,) studied this question.