PRESIDENT’S POSTSCRIPT—OUR JOURNEY CONTINUES

My journey with the Society began when I attended the 1995 MRS Fall Meeting in Boston. I was like a kid in a candy store. I learned so much at that first Meeting that I couldn’t wait to go back. Since then, I have attended many more MRS Meetings and slowly evolved from student, to postdoc, to researcher to administrator. Along the way, I took another journey with MRS, and one that I encourage all to try: getting involved with the Society. Today, opportunities for engagement in MRS are many and diverse, and include a broad range of professional development and career services for members from students to seasoned professionals. There are competitions—Science as Art, Science in Video, and the Open Data Challenge. And for innovators, there is iMatSci, an opportunity to compete for cash prizes and possible startup funding.

I urge you to get involved with MRS. There are so many ways to engage, to propel the Society into the 22nd century, and to find the right fit for your science journey.

Coming full circle, my excitement for MRS meetings remains. I look forward to many more Fall Meetings in Boston, and particularly Iook forward to new Spring Meeting adventures in Seattle, Honolulu, and our ‘old friend’ San Francisco in the years to come! I hope to see you there!

Sean J. Hearne

2018 MRS President

HIGHLIGHTS

In 2018, the Society created two new subcommittees—Student Engagement and Early Career Professional Engagement— focused on engaging the next-generation of materials researchers with programs and activities relevant to their needs. Our portfolio of professional development and career services centers on preparing these members for the critical transition from graduate education to the workforce. Salary negotiation, resume writing, and interview and networking skills are just a few examples of our expanded offerings. And in collaboration with four leading scientific societies, MRS is participating in the NSF INCLUDES-funded Inclusive Graduate Education Network (IGEN), created to increase the number of underrepresented ethnic minority students pursuing PhDs in the physical sciences.

Of course, MRS continues to produce high-quality meetings and publications, assuring that work germane to the field is timely featured. The growing MRS OnDemand^® Webinar Series offers free live and archived content on emerging materials topics by subject experts and global thought leaders, and has now added professional development options. The iMatSci Innovation Showcase has become an increasingly valuable platform for innovators to demonstrate their newest materials-focused technologies. The Journal of Materials Research (JMR) published its third Early Career Scholars in Materials Science issue, providing a unique opportunity for researchers to be highlighted and promoted early in their careers. And the Society named its first recipient of the MRS Nelson “Buck” Robinson Science and Technology Award for Renewable Energy.

This is just a small sampling of the accomplishments MRS and our volunteers realized over the past year ... and it leaves us well positioned for the year to come!

For updated news about programs and opportunities, visit the Materials Research Society at mrs.org.