We are pleased to announce that Jon Agirre will take over as Editor-in-Chief of IUCr Journals from Andrew Allen in January 2027. Andrew will step down after more than eight years at the helm of IUCr Journals. We would like to take this opportunity to thank Andrew for his outstanding service and leadership during a period of considerable change in scientific publishing, and to welcome Jon as he prepares to lead IUCr Journals into its next chapter.
Jon Agirre is currently a Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) at the York Structural Biology Laboratory (YSBL) in the Department of Chemistry, University of York, UK. Career wise, Jon did an integrated masters in Computer Engineering at the University of the Basque Country in Donostia, and completed his PhD in Biochemistry at the Unidad de Biofisica of the Spanish Research Council (CSIC) in Bilbao. In 2017, he became the Royal Society Olga Kennard Research Fellow and started his own group in York.
Although many people will rightly associate his surname with CCP4 – he led the write-up of the 2023 general citation paper – he became most well known for the Privateer software, a leading package for the validation, analysis, representation and re-refinement of glycan atomic structures.
His track record with IUCr Journals started in 2018, guest editing a special issue on Glycoproteins and Protein–Carbohydrate Complexes for Acta Cryst. F. He joined the journal as Co-editor in 2019, and became a Section Editor in 2023. He also helped edit a special issue of Acta Cryst. D on Model Building, Validation and Representation in MX and cryoEM, and a focused issue of Acta Cryst. F on Empowering education through structural genomics.
During his tenure as Acta Cryst. F Section Editor, Jon has spearheaded the introduction of Interviews with Authors, a YouTube programme where the editorial team chat to authors of recent articles published in the journal to discuss the presented research findings in their context.
Outside of work, Jon captures landscape and macro photography on family hikes, builds analogue audio circuits, crafts and plays guitars, and listens to music across nearly every genre.
