Soft Matter is delighted to welcome its new Editorial Board Chair: Professor Martien Cohen Stuart. 

At the end of February, Ullrich Steiner (Cambridge, UK) who had been Soft Matter's Editorial Board Chair since the journal first launched in 2005, retired from the position. Our sincere thanks to Professor Steiner for all his hard work during this time, steering the journal so successfully through its first five years of publication. 

His replacement, Martien Cohen Stuart is Professor and Chair of Physical Chemistry & Colloid Science at Wageningen University in the Netherlands, where he has spent much of his distinguished career. He has received numerous awards, including the Wolfgang Ostwald Medal in 2007 and Akzo Nobel Science Award in 2008 as well as several NWO-TOP awards. Martien has over 290 publications in refereed journals, and has also written a book and ten book chapters. He has a broad range of research interests in the field of soft condensed matter, including surfactants, emulsions, self-assembly, interfaces, wetting and the physics of macromolecules in living cells. 

As Soft Matter  celebrates its fifth anniversary, Professor Cohen Stuart is looking forward to working with RSC Publishing in shaping the future of the number one journal in the field: 'Five years: we celebrate a young journal. Young as it is, it has already become quite visible and respected among soft matter scientists. I would like to congratulate the journal and all those who helped it through its toddler's years with the success. For the years to come I hope to do everything to maintain and, where possible, develop Soft Matter's strength and authority: soft matter, hard science!!'