The American Ceramic Society

ACerS is launching a new mentoring program designed to nurture the next generation of talent in ceramic materials and technologies. The program matches experienced engineers, scientists, educators and business professionals with young professionals and graduate students just getting started in the field of ceramics.

How the Program Works
ACerS will match participants based on area of focus (e.g. electronics, energy, glass, etc.), career path (e.g. academia, business, research, etc.) or geographic proximity. When a match is made, the Society will notify the mentor and mentee and provide contact information and additional resource materials.

Working together, each pair of participants will determine what they want to achieve and how their relationship should be structured. While there are no set rules, ACerS encourages participants to stay involved for at least one year, and participants can extend the relationship beyond this time period, if so desired.
The mentor-mentee relationship may be largely based on phone and email contact or may extend to face-to-face meetings, if convenient and desirable to both parties.

The Role of Mentor
The role of mentor may include:

Providing career advice and guidance.
Suggesting appropriate continuing education coursework, workshops or technical meetings to help the mentee achieve career goals.
Introducing the mentee to other professional colleagues.
Discussing current research and developments in the mentor’s field of expertise.
Providing advice and feedback on projects, curriculum, grant applications or publication of research results.
Hosting a mentee at a conference or in the mentor’s laboratory or plant.

The Role of Mentee
The role of mentee may include:

Requesting guidance about your resume, career goals or continuing education opportunities.
Asking for advice about technical meetings, publishing opportunities or volunteer leadership opportunities.
Exploring and exchanging thoughts with your mentor on current research, trends, and developments in the field of ceramic materials and technologies.

How to Apply
If you want to apply to become a mentor, complete and return the application form. To get a form, click here.

If you want to apply to become a mentee, complete and return the application form. To get a form, click here .

To facilitate appropriate pairings of mentors and mentees, please indicate more than one area of interest. ACerS will contact you after processing your application and finding an appropriate match.

2009 CLASS OF FELLOWS www.ceramics.org/awards

It is time to submit nominations for the 2009 class of Fellows! Deadline for submitting nominations is August 1, 2008 (for elevation to Fellow in October 2009).

What Is A Fellow?
Fellows are person of good reputation who have reached their 35th birthday, and who have been members of The American Ceramic Society for at least five years continuously at the time of their election. They have been proven qualified for elevation to the grade of Fellow by reason of:

Outstanding contributions to the ceramic arts or sciences.
Broad and productive scholarship in ceramic science and technology.
Conspicuous achievement in the ceramic industry.
Outstanding service to the Society.

New Nominations
A nomination form can be found at this link [http://www.ceramics.org/aboutus/awards/fellow_nomination.aspx] Sponsors! Please note nominations are limited to three pages and all signatures need to be original signatures. Faxed or photocopied signatures cannot be accepted.

The nominee, as well as all sponsors, must be active ACerS’ members. A cover letter from the first sponsor, setting forth the qualifications of the nominee, must accompany the nomination. Single-page endorsement letters from additional members may accompany the nomination.

Updates to Existing Nominations
If an individual has already been nominated and their nomination is still active and, if that nominee has had additional accomplishments since the nomination was submitted, you may send an update for consideration. Nominations are active for four consecutive reviews by the Panel of Fellows. Contact Marcia Stout (see below) to determine if a nomination is active.
Criteria for Becoming A Fellow
To become a Fellow, candidates must:

Be persons of good reputation.
Have reached their 35th birthday.
Be an ACerS’ member for at least five continuous years at time of election.
Made outstanding contributions to the ceramic arts or sciences by:
broad and productive scholarship in ceramic science and technology.
conspicuous achievement in the ceramic industry. outstanding service to the Society.

All nominations submitted by August 1, 2008, will be considered for elevation to Fellow at the October 2009 ACerS Annual Meeting.

Where to Send Nominations
Nominations should be submitted to: Marcia Stout, Senior Manager - Member Services, The American Ceramic Society, 600 N. Cleveland Ave., Ste. 210, Westerville, OH 43082; Phone: 614-794-5821; Fax: 614-794-5882; Email: mstout@ceramics.org.

ADVANCED CERAMICS CONFERENCE CALL FOR PAPERS

Don’t miss the opportunity to present your latest research, developments or new applications at this premier event! The 33rd International Conference & Exposition on Advanced Ceramics & Composites will be held in Daytona Beach, Florida at the Hilton Daytona Beach Resort and Ocean Center on January 18-23, 2009.

This premier advanced ceramics conference is organized by The American Ceramic Society and The American Ceramic Society’s Engineering Ceramics Division, with the support of the Electronics and the Nuclear and Environmental Technology Divisions. The conference will feature 11 symposia and four “focused sessions” in the following areas:

Mechanical Behavior and Performance of Ceramics & Composites
Advanced Ceramic Coatings for Structural, Environmental, and Functional Applications Solid Oxide Fuel Cells (SOFC): Materials, Science, and Technology
Armor Ceramics
Next Generation Bioceramics
Key Materials and Technologies for Efficient Direct Thermal-to-Electrical Conversion
Nanostructured Materials and Nanocomposites: In Honor of Professor Koichi Niihara
Advanced Processing and Manufacturing Technologies (APMT) for Structural and Multifunctional Materials and Systems
Porous Ceramics: Novel Developments and Applications
Silicon Carbide and Carbon-based Materials for Fusion and Advanced Nuclear Energy Applications
Advanced Dielectric, Piezoelectric, Ferroelectric, and Multiferroic Materials
Geopolymers and Other Inorganic Polymers
Materials for Solid-State Lighting
Advanced Sensor Technology for High-Temperature Applications
Processing and Properties of Nuclear Fuels and Wastes

For more information and a downloadable version of the Call for Papers brochure, click here. Abstracts may be submitted through the ICACC abstract submission page.

GOMD CHALKS UP ANNUAL MEETING SUCCESS

More than 200 glass professionals gathered in May for ACerS’ 2008 Glass & Optical Materials Division Meeting in Tucson, AZ www.ceramics.org/glass2008

The meeting’s program chair, Kelly Simmons-Potter, an associate professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and the Department of Optical Sciences at the University of Arizona, credited session organizers for an outstanding program that focused on the rich range of physical phenomena critical to the design, formation and utilization of glass and optical materials.

One of the meeting’s special features was a tutorial entitled, Non-Linear Optics in Glass, presented by Denise Krol. The meeting also offered two cross-cutting special sessions that highlighted the science and application of emerging technologies and their impact on energy sustainability, space-based technologies and national security.

Students Take Center Stage
The meeting also featured a special panel discussion planned specifically for students considering careers in glass. Sparked by give-and-take, the session offered students perspectives from a panel of speakers that represented the glass industry, start-up businesses, national labs and academia. The Student Poster Competition also put tomorrow’s glass professionals at center stage. Jonathan Massera of Clemson University captured the competition’s first place award. Second place went to Mark Durante of Creighton University, and Jennifer Byer of Iowa State took home the third place student poster award.

Stookey Award
GOMD’s three-day technical program kicked off with the Stookey Lecture of Discovery, sponsored by Corning. Named in honor of materials pioneer S. Donald Stookey, the award is presented annually by ACerS’ Glass and Optical Materials Division. The award recognizes an individual who has demonstrated a lifetime of innovative exploratory work or noteworthy research on new materials that have commercial significance.
The winner of this year’s Stookey Award was Larry Hench, Emeritus Professor, Department of Materials and Co-Director of Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine Centre, Imperial College, London.

Morey Award
The Division’s 2008 George W. Morey Award is sponsored by PPG Industries and recognizes achievement in the field of glass science and technology. This year’s award was presented to Steve W. Martin, University Professor, Department of Materials Science Engineering at Iowa State University of Science and Technology.

Kreidl Award
The Glass and Optical Materials Division’s Norbert J. Kreidl Award for Young Scholars recognizes excellence in research by students in the fields of glass and optical materials. Allison Wilhelm of the University of Arizona was the recipient of this year’s Kreidl Award.

Networking and Fun
Hardly “all work and no play,” the meeting kicked off with a welcome reception at the Arizona Historical Society. Against a background of the Old West, attendees networked while perusing the world’s largest collection of Arizona historical artifacts.

Attendees also enjoyed guest speaker, Nancy Odegaard, conservator and head of the Arizona State Museum’s Preservation Division [http://www.statemuseum.arizona.edu/preserv/whos_who.shtml] . Odegaard’s presentation introduced attendees to more than 2000 years of pottery-making traditions in the Southwest and featured vessels from the Museum’s 20,000 piece collection.

Yet another highlight of this year’s GOMD meeting was a tour of the University of Arizona’s Steward Observatory Mirror Laboratory. The Mirror Lab team went out of their way to give attendees an inside look at a facility where scientists and engineers make giant, lightweight mirrors of unprecedented power for optical and infrared telescopes.

ACERS MEMBER, SUSAN TROLIER-MCKINSTRY, NAMED TO DOD’S FELLOW PROGRAM

ACerS’ Member Susan Trolier-McKinstry, professor of ceramic science and engineering in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Penn State, has been selected by the Department of Defense as one of six scientists from U.S. universities to participate in the inaugural class of DOD’s new National Security Science and Engineering Faculty Fellows Program.

DOD’s program provides each of the six fellows with grants of up to $3 million over a five-year period. The award is to be used for long-term funding of open and unclassified research deemed of crucial importance to DOD’s future technology needs.

Trolier-McKinstry said her defense-related research will encompass low voltage, high energy density actuators for radio frequency switches used in radar systems and electronically steered antennae; self-powered sensors for persistent surveillance; ultrasonic ranging systems for autonomous robots; miniaturized high frequency ultrasound systems for casualty care, potentially under battlefield conditions; and miniaturized adaptive optics systems for targeting.

The professor is the director of Penn State’s W.M. Keck Smart Materials Integration Laboratory , and leads the Center of Excellence in Piezoelectric Materials and Devices within the Center for Dielectric Studies at Penn State.

Trolier-McKinstry said her proposal to DOD entailed developing thin film piezoelectric actuators in the field of advanced electroceramic materials. She said she considered ceramic materials to be vital components in many emerging communications, electronics and energy technologies. More specifically, Trolier-McKinstry’s proposal to DOD outlined a three-part program:

To develop the next-generation of high strain piezoelectric films, increasing the piezoelectric response by a factor of 2 – 10.
To simplify the patterning of complex multicomponent oxides for microelectromechanical systems using microcontact printing.
To lower the required processing temperature for crystallizing piezoelectric materials to the point where they can be combined with integrated

circuits on the same substrate, thereby allowing for much more functional miniaturized devices.

“This award gives us tremendous flexibility to pursue the key science and engineering challenges in piezoelectrics for microelectromechanical systems. This kind of sustained funding allows us to explore deeper, fundamental problems”

Trolier-McKinstry said.
In addition to her American Ceramic Society membership, Trolier-McKinstry is the recipient of ACerS’ Coble and Fulrath awards. She is also Academician in the World Academy of Ceramics and currently serves as president of the IEEE Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics and Frequency Control Society.

NICE INVITES ENGINEERS TO THE ‘OBLIGATION OF ENGINEER'. www.ceramics.org/OEMST

The American Ceramic Society’s National Institute of Ceramic Engineers is proud to announce its affiliation with the Order of the Engineer, an organization that exists to “foster a spirit of pride and responsibility in the engineering profession, to bridge the gap between training and experience and to present to the public a visible symbol identifying the engineer.”

All engineers are invited to join “The Order of the Engineer” at a special ceremony that will take place on Oct. 6, 2008, in conjunction with MS&T‘08 in Pittsburgh, Pa.

Who Is Eligible?
Eligible candidates include graduating seniors in engineering; practicing engineers; and professors who teach engineering in accredited programs. Application deadline is August 25, 2008.

At the induction ceremony held in conjunction with MS&T’08, initiates will recite an oath acknowledging their “Obligation of the Engineer” and accept a stainless steel ring to be worn on the fifth finger of the working hand. The entire ceremony will last approximately an hour, depending on number of participants.

Initiates will pledge to uphold the standards and dignity of the engineering profession and to serve humanity by making the best use of Earth's precious wealth. The Order exists to foster a unity of purpose and encourages engineers to honor their lifelong pledge.

How to Participate
NICE will host the next induction into the Order of the Engineer. To be a part of this ceremony, please go to the NICE website [http://www. ceramics.org/membership/Sections_Classes/nice.aspx] and click on the “Order of the Engineer Ceremony at MS&T’08” link under the “News” section. Fill out the application form on page two and mail it, along with a check for $25, to: The American Ceramic Society, 600 North Cleveland Avenue, Suite 210, Westerville, OH 43082.

Important! Be sure to provide your ring size, because rings will be ordered prior to the induction ceremony. The one-time cost of joining the Order of the Engineer is $25. This charge includes your ring and certificate. No dues are required.

In the event you cannot read or access the form, please call or e-mail: Diane C. Folz; Chair, NICE Link; Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University (Virginia Tech), Dept. of Materials Science and Engineering, 213 Holden Hall, Blacksburg, Virginia 24061; Phone: 540-231-6640; Fax: 540-231-8919; E-mail: dfolz@vt.edu.

ACERS INVITES ENTRIES FOR CERAMOGRAPHIC COMPETITION - www.ceramics.org/Awards

Entries are now being accepted for the Ceramographic Competition that will take place during ACerS’ Annual Meeting, held in conjunction with MS&T’08 on Oct. 6, 2008, at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center in Pittsburgh, Pa.

Entry Deadline: Sep. 15, 2008
The Ceramographic Competition is an annual exhibit of posters designed to promote the use of microscopy and microanalysis as tools in the scientific investigation of ceramic materials. All entries will be prominently displayed at the Convention Center, and the poster deemed “Best of Show” will be published in a future issue of the Ceramic Bulletin. Other entries will appear in the Journal of The American Ceramic Society throughout the year.

Competition Parameters
Participants are encouraged to submit entries in one or more of the following categories: Optical Microscopy (including confocal)
Scanning Electron Microscopy
Transmission Electron Microscopy
Microanalysis (including AEM, EPMA, AES, SIMS, AEM)
Combined Techniques
Problem Solving (include micrographs that provide answers to a problem)
Scanning Probe Microscopy
Undergraduate Studies

Best of Show and Other Awards
First, second and third place winners will be recognized in each classification with a certificate and monetary awards of $75, $50 and $25, respectively.

Best of Show winner will receive the Roland B. Snow Award, sponsored by ACerS’ Basic Science Division. The award includes a $100 cash prize and an inscribed Steuben glass piece. The Best of Show Winner will be announced before the Sosman Lecture and at the Basic Science Division’s Business Meeting.

Rules of Entry:

Previous entries are not acceptable.
Only two entries per class per person.
Entire poster must be mounted on stiff white cardboard or laminated.
Poster dimensions must be 41 cm by 51 cm. Single prints must be no smaller than 20 cm by 25 cm. (In the case of multiple prints, there must be no more than four, and each shall be no larger than 13 cm by 18 cm.)

Entries must be clearly labeled on the front face with the following information:

Classification
Concise title
25 to 75 word description of technical significance
Names and affiliations of contributors (Label entry on the back with name and return address)
Undergraduate student entrants must be enrolled in ceramic courses at the time photographs are produced.
If fewer than four entries are received per classification, posters may be combined with another classification
Entries will be returned one year after the display, if requested in writing to ACerS.

koz@ornl.gov

ACerS Launches Membership Recruitment Campaign - www.ceramics.org/joinus

ACerS launched a membership recruitment campaign in late June. The campaign is built around the concept of “every-member-get a-member” – or several members for that matter! Letters were sent to ACerS’ entire membership on June 23rd requesting members to help grow the Society by referring and recruiting those who work with materials into The American Ceramic Society.

# of New Member Referrals	Reward to Current Member
1	ACerS’ T-Shirt or Umbrella or Ceramic Mug
3	ACerS’ Polo Shirt
6	Free One Year Individual Membership
9	One Free ACerS’ Meeting Registration
12	One Year of Free ACerS Meeting Registrations, Books and Services

Discount for Colleagues

How Does It Work?

here

Membership Benefits

www.ceramics.org/joinus

TO BE OR NOT TO BE? THE MAGIC OF CERAMICS

ACerS would like input from its members on whether or not a book that was published eight years ago – The Magic of Ceramics – should be updated and published again. If you are not familiar with The Magic of Ceramics, background is available at this link www.wiley.com.

richersond@aol.com

What topics included in the first edition should be updated, and what do you recommend as the nature of the update?
What hot new topics, inventions, products should be added?
Do you have photographs, descriptive information, “amazing facts” or other input that you think would be effective to include in the second edition? If so, your suggestions would be very welcome.
Are there particular audiences that you think a second edition of The Magic of Ceramics should reach? If so, what are these audiences? Do you have any suggestions regarding how ACerS could effectively reach these audiences?

ICOTOM Report

ICOTOM 15 convened on June 2, 2008, at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Penn., with a record attendance of 325 scientists and engineers.

Jointly organized by The American Ceramic Society and The Minerals, Metals and Materials Society, the 2008 conference looked back on a history that few other educational events could match.

Thirty Year History

Networking and Fun