The Latin American crystallographers attending the IUCr meeting in Madrid, Spain, in August of 2011, agreed to form a Committee to promote the formation of a Latin American Crystallography organization and organize its first meeting in Córdoba, Argentina, in 2013, in conjunction with the Argentinean national meeting. Since then, the committee formed in Madrid has been actively encouraging scientists working in single crystal and powder diffraction (and other diffraction-related techniques) to be part of the effort of organizing the Asociación Latinoamericana de Cristalografía (Latin American Crystallographic Association, LACA).
The meeting planned was successfully organized as the Primera Reunión Latinoamericana de Cristalografía (First Latin American Crystallography Meeting), in conjunction with the IX Annual Meeting of the Argentinean Crystallographic Association (AACr), from October 29 to November 1 of 2013, at Universidad Nacional de Córdoba (UNC), Córdoba, Argentina. It must be mentioned that this event was part of the activities organized to celebrate, through 2013, the 400 anniversary of the Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, UNC (the oldest of Argentina and one of the oldest of the Americas).
The scientific program of the meeting included 11 plenary lectures, 8 semi-plenaries, 13 short oral presentations, and about 130 poster presentations by invited speakers and participants from Latin American countries (Argentina, Brazil, México, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Perú, Uruguay, and Venezuela) and from the USA, Canada, Spain, France, Italy, Germany, UK, United Arab Emirates, South Africa, and India. Invited speakers included Iris Torriani, Claude Lecomte, Joel Bernstein, Robert Dinnebier, Mino Caira, Jordi Rius, Hugo Monaco, Bill Duax, Daniel Vega, Pedro Alzari, Carlos Giles, among others.
Past and present IUCr, ACA, ECA, and AsCA officers were among the attendants. An Honorary Doctorate from Universidad Nacional de Córdoba was conferred to Professor Gautam Desiraju, IUCr President. In the exhibition hall, there were booths of the major manufacturers of X-ray diffraction instruments (Agilent, Bruker, and Rigaku). The International Centre for Diffraction Data (ICDD) also had a booth where the PDF-4+ and PDF-4/Organics databases were demonstrated. Several ICDD members participated in the meeting and spent time at the booth talking to attendees visiting the booth.
Financial support for the event was provided by CONICET (Argentina), Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, IUCr, and ICDD, among other organizations. The Chairman of the Local Organizing Committee was Professor Raúl Carbonio (UNC, Argentina).
The meeting was preceded on October 28 by the II Workshop of the AACr dedicated to Neutron Diffraction Techniques for Materials Characterization. In this workshop, Alberto Podjarny (IGBMC, France), Gabriel Cuello and Mónica Jiménez-Ruiz (ILL, France), and Javier Campos (ICMA, Spain) participated as Instructors. The V School of the AACr followed the meeting from November 4 to 8. The theme of the school was “Structure Solution and Microstructural Analysis from Powder Diffraction Data and was conducted by Jordi Rius and Carlos Frontera (ICMB, Spain) and Ernesto Estévez-Rams (ICTM, Cuba).
At the general assembly of the meeting it was formally decided to create the Asociación Latinoamericana de Cristalografía (Latin American Crystallographic Association, LACA). J. Sabino (Brazil), D. Lamas (Argentina), and L. Bucio (Mexico) were elected as provisional President, Vice-President, and Secretary, respectively. A committee composed of representatives from each Latin American country with active crystallographers will work on the proposal to become a Regional Associate of the IUCr. It was also decided to celebrate the Latin American meetings every year, except in the same year as the IUCr meeting. Brazil will host the 2015 meeting and for 2016 Venezuela and Cuba presented proposals to organize it.
It is expected that the new organization will provide a sort of revival of the spirit of the old Iberoamerican Congress on Crystallography which used to take place every two years, from the early 60s to 1994. It could become, along with the SARX meeting, a very important event in the region. It is noteworthy that within the Latin American crystallographic community there is a stronger presence of powder diffraction in comparison with what we see in the USA and European crystallographic communities.
The passing of Professor Jorge Garín
With deep regret we have to mention that during the First Latin American Crystallography Meeting, held from October 29 to November 1 of 2013, at Universidad Nacional de Córdoba (UNC), Córdoba, Argentina, we learned about the passing of Professor Jorge Leonidas Garín Córdova. Profesor Garín was, for more than 40 years, a Faculty member of the Metallurgical Department of the Universidad de Santiago de Chile (USACH). He obtained his Ingeniero degree from USACH in 1968 and his Ph.D. in Materials Science from The University of Pennsylvania in 1972. He returned to his Alma Mater where he worked until the day of his sudden death. He was an expert in the area of Characterization of Materials using X-ray Powder Diffraction techniques and a very much respected teacher and mentor. He was the adviser of a large number of undergraduate and graduate students at USACH. Professor Garín was a regular attendant of the most important Latin American and International meetings related to diffraction and crystallography. He was highly regarded within the crystallographic community throughout Latin America. We will certainly miss him.
(Color online) Opening remarks by Professor Raúl Carbonio, Chairman of the Local Organizing Committee.
(Color online) Graciela Díaz de Delgado, Jordi Rius, Miguel Delgado, and José Antonio Henao at the ICDD booth.
(Color online) Professor Joel Bernstein with participants from Venezuela and Colombia.
(Color online) Well-known Latin American scientists visiting the ICDD booth during the 2006 SARX meeting in Arica, Chile (Professor Jorge Garín is the third form left to right).
