The 2011 Materials Research Society Fall Meeting in Boston, November 30–December 2, will be chaired by Cammy R. Abernathy (University of Florida), Paul V. Braun (University of Illinois-Urbana), Masashi Kawasaki (University of Tokyo), and Kathryn J. Wahl (Naval Research Laboratory). Updated information on the meeting is available at www.mrs.org/meetings.

Cammy R. Abernathy is currently dean of the College of Engineering at the University of Florida. Her research interests are in synthesis of thin-film electronic materials and devices using metal organic chemical vapor deposition and molecular beam epitaxy. She obtained her SB degree in materials science and engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1980, and her MS and PhD degrees in materials science and engineering from Stanford University in 1982 and 1985, respectively. She joined the University of Florida’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering as a professor in 1993. In 2004 she became the College’s Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and in July 2009 was appointed to her current position as dean. Abernathy is the author of over 500 journal publications, over 430 conference papers, one co-authored book, seven edited books, eight book chapters, and seven patents. She is a fellow of the America Vacuum Society, the American Physics Society, and the Electrochemical Society. She is also a member of the American Society of Engineering Education and the Materials Research Society.

Paul V. Braun is a professor of materials science and engineering, and an affiliate of the Frederick Seitz Materials Research Laboratory, the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology, and the Department of Chemistry at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His research focuses on the synthesis and properties of three-dimensional architectures with a focus on materials with unique optical, electrochemical, thermal, and mechanical properties. Braun received his BS degree from Cornell University in 1993, and his PhD degree in materials science and engineering from Illinois in 1998. Following a postdoctoral appointment at Bell Labs, Lucent Technologies, he joined the faculty at Illinois as an assistant professor in 1999. Braun has co-authored a book, authored over 100 peer-reviewed publications, has been awarded multiple patents, and co-founded a company focusing on self-healing materials. He is the recipient of a Beckman Young Investigator Award (2001); a 3M Nontenured Faculty Award; the 2002 Robert Lansing Hardy Award from the Minerals, Metals, & Materials Society; the Xerox Award for Faculty Research (2004, 2009); the Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel Research Award of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (2010); and multiple teaching awards. In 2006, he was named a University Scholar by the University of Illinois.

Masashi Kawasaki has been a professor in the Quantum-Phase Electronics Center and Department of Applied Physics at the University of Tokyo since 2011. He had been co-assigned as Advisor at Joint Research Center for Atom Technology, AIST; Team Leader at Combinatorial Exploration and Technology, NIMS; and Team Leader at Correlated Electron Research Center, AIST; and has been co-assigned as Team Leader at Cross-Correlated Materials Research Group, RIKEN. Kawasaki is interested in oxide thin films and interfaces from the view points of photonic, electronic, and magnetic functionalities. He has demonstrated the first p–n junction ZnO light-emitting diode, the first quantum Hall effect in oxide, and the first electric field-induced superconductivity. Kawasaki received his PhD degree in applied chemistry from the University of Tokyo in 1989. After two years as a postdoctoral fellow at IBM Research, Yorktown Heights, he became a research associate and later an associate professor at Tokyo Institute of Technology. In 2001, he joined Institute for Materials Research at Tohoku University as a professor and moved to the WPI Advanced Institute for Materials Research in 2007. He has published 500 refereed papers and gave 150 plenary/invited talks. His total number of citations exceeds 17,000 and h-index is 63 as of Nov. 2010.

Kathryn J. Wahl heads the Molecular Interfaces and Tribology Section at the Naval Research Laboratory. Her research has focused on fundamental physics and chemistry of sliding and adhesive interfaces, both at macroscopic and nanometer scales. Currently, her research efforts include the development of in situ chemical and mechanical methods to probe bioadhesive contacts created by marine biofoulants like barnacles. Wahl received a BA degree in physics and mathematics from St. Olaf College in 1987, and a PhD degree in materials science and engineering from Northwestern University in 1992. Since then, she has been at the Naval Research Laboratory, first as a postdoctoral researcher and then as a research staff member in the Chemistry Division since 1995. She was a guest editor of the December 2008 issue of the MRS Bulletin on “In Situ Tribology.” She serves on the editorial boards of the journals Wear, Tribology Letters, and Journal of Physics D, received a Navy Meritorius Civilian Service Medal in 2008, and is a Fellow of the American Vacuum Society (AVS) and Society of Tribologists and Lubrication Engineers.