Preview: 2011 Materials Research Society Spring Meeting & Exhibit

Moscone West and

San Francisco Marriott Marquis, San Francisco, California

Meeting: April 25–29

Exhibit: April 26–28 http://www.mrs.org/S11

Figure 1

Ping Chen

Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics

Figure 2

Chang-Beom Eom

University of Wisconsin-Madison

Figure 3

Samuel S. Mao

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Figure 4

Ryan O’Hayre

Colorado School of Mines

The 2011 Materials Research Society Spring Meeting will be held April 25–29, 2011 in San Francisco, Calif. The MRS Spring Meeting has grown considerably in recent years, and the 2011 Spring Meeting looks to be the largest yet. The Meeting will feature 50 symposia involving the categories of Electronic and Photonic Materials, Materials for Energy and Sustainability, Nanomaterials and Nanotechnology, Organic and Biomaterials, and General Materials Science. To complement the scientific sessions, tutorials will provide detailed introductions to particularly exciting areas of research, while the exhibit will showcase products of interest to the materials community. The technical meeting and exhibits will be located at the Moscone West Convention Center and San Francisco Marriott Marquis.

The scientific sessions will include many new and developing areas of materials research as well as some well-established and popular topics.

Electronic and Photonic Materials includes symposia with focus on electronic materials and devices, plasmonics, sensing, semiconductor processing, nuclear detectors, phase-change materials, and memory devices.

Materials for Energy and Sustainability will focus on photovoltaics, energy conversion and storage, solid-state ionics and complex oxides, thermoelectrics, and electrochromics.

Nanomaterials and Nanotechnology contains the production and characterization of nanomaterials with additional symposia devoted to nano-fluidics, nano-electromechanics, interfaces, and catalysis.

Organic and Biomaterials features a strong emphasis in biomimetic materials and hybrid devices, biosensors, and bioelectronics, with additional focus on biofilms, polymers, and stem cells.

General Materials Science rounds out the Meeting with symposia on computation, metal organic frameworks, superconductivity, materials interactions and defects, multiferroics, and a forum on materials education.

Symposium X: Frontiers of Materials Research will feature topics of general interest at the forefront of materials science and engineering. Among the speakers will be Kazunari Domen of the University of Tokyo whose presentation is “Non-oxide Materials for Photocatalytic Water Splitting under Visible Light.”

A special forum will be held on Monday, Acta Materialia Gold Medal Forum: Frontiers in Thin Film Epitaxy and Nanostructured Materials, chaired by Amit Goyal (Oak Ridge National Laboratory), Bill Appleton (University of Florida), Sungho Jin (University of California—San Diego), and Justin Schwartz (North Carolina State University). This forum is dedicated to seminal research contributions of Jagdish (Jay) Narayan (recipient of the 2011 Acta Materialia Gold Medal) in the field of materials science and engineering and to his leadership in materials science worldwide through professional societies and the National Science Foundation. Narayan is the John C.C. Fan Family Distinguished Chair Professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering in the College of Engineering at North Carolina State University. He also has the Distinguished Visiting Scientist appointment at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

Table 1 2011 MRS Spring Meeting Registration Rates

An awards ceremony will be held at which this year’s Outstanding Young Investigator and recipient of the Innovations in Materials Characterization Award will both be recognized, MRS Fellows will be honored, and Gold and Silver Graduate Student Awards will be presented to graduate students for symposium papers that exemplify significant and timely research.

Poster sessions will be held in the Moscone West on Tuesday from 5:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. and in the Marriott on Wednesday and Thursday from 8:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m. The meeting chairs will sponsor a Best Poster Award competition, selecting recipients each night on the basis of the posters’ technical content, appearance, graphic excellence, and presentation quality.

The popular Science as Art competition will be held again at this Meeting. The competition is open to all registered meeting attendees, with entries to be on display in the Exhibit Hall at Moscone West. Multiple first-place and second-place awards of $400 and $200, respectively, will be presented at the Meeting. The deadline for entries is February 28, 2011. Guidelines are available on the 2011 MRS Spring Meeting Web site, under “Special Events.”

MRS will host a Career Center; services offered to attendees include access to current job postings, a resume file for prospective employers, and on-site interview opportunities.

Graduate students and members of MRS University Chapters are invited to attend the student mixer reception. Also, chapter officers and faculty advisors are invited to attend a meeting of MRS University Chapter representatives to compare notes on recent activities and brainstorm on new projects and issues of common concern. Those interested in starting new chapters are welcome.

The deadline to pre-register for the Spring Meeting is April 8, 2011. International travelers are reminded to begin the visa process early. For additional information on the Spring Meeting, contact MRS Member Services, Materials Research Society, 506 Keystone Drive, Warrendale, PA 15086-7573, USA; e-mail info@mrs.org, tel. 724-779-3003, and fax 724-779-8313.

Details of various events and activities will be published in the Program & Exhibit Guide available on site. The MRS Web site can be accessed for updated information on confirmed talks and details on special events, for more information on obtaining a visa, and pre-registration at http://www.mrs.org/S11.