In May 2017, we sat down with Kathy Ayers, vice president of research and development for Proton OnSite, at the 231st ECS Meeting in New Orleans. The conversation was led by Amanda Staller, web content specialist at ECS.

Ayer’s work focuses on a multitude of energy technologies, including fuel cells, batteries, and solar cells. Currently, her work targets the production of hydrogen by PEM electrolysis. She has been a member of ECS since 1999, lending her expertise to various Society programs and meeting symposia along the way.

Listen to the podcast and download this episode and others for free through the iTunes Store, SoundCloud, or our RSS Feed. You can also find us on Stitcher and Acast.

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A journal’s impact factor looks at the number of citations within a particular year, but the significance of some research exceeds a one year time frame. To highlight these papers, Google Scholar released their Classic Papers collection, which highlights highly-cited papers that have stood the test of time.

“This release of classic papers consists of articles that were published in 2006 and is based on our index as it was in May 2017,” Sean Henderson, software engineer at Google Scholar, said in a release. “The list of classic papers includes articles that presented new research. It specifically excludes review articles, introductory articles, editorials, guidelines, commentaries, etc. It also excludes articles with fewer than 20 citations and, for now, is limited to articles written in English.”

In the category of electrochemistry, works by ECS members Gleb Yushin, Christopher Johnson, Yuri Gogotsi, and Bernard Tribollet made the list.

Additionally, Michael Graetzel’s 2006 paper published in the Journal of The Electrochemical Society (JES), “Highly Efficient Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells Based on Carbon Black Counter Electrodes,” claimed the number eight spot.

“A journal from a professional society like ECS will look at the value of the science as the value of the science and not necessarily what its pizzazz is at that particular time,” Robert Savinell, editor of JES, told ECS in a recent podcast. “I think that’s one of the reasons we have this 10 year impact factor that’s at the top of the list. We’re looking at quality of the science in the long term.”

By: Delaney Hellman, ECS Development Associate

ECS is proud to announce that at the upcoming 232nd ECS Meeting, we will be hosting our first OpenCon satellite event! OpenCon is a conference that places a spotlight, produces discussion, and increases collaboration on issues of open access, open science, open data, open source, and open education. Initially hosted by the Right2Research Coalition and SPARC, satellite events can be held by anyone with an interest in the subject matter. As ECS works to advance its Free the Science initiative, we want to be at the forefront of the open discussion in our industry.

The event is completely free to attend on October 1, from 2:00 – 6:00 pm.

Don’t miss speakers from Dryad, The Gates Foundation, SPARC, Center for Open Science, and more.

RSVP as soon as possible: http://www.opencon2017.org/ecs_opencon_2017

By: Andrew J. Hoffman, University of Michigan

When politicians distort science, academics and scientists tend to watch in shock from the sidelines rather than speak out. But in an age of “fake news” and “alternative facts,” we need to step into the breach and inject scientific literacy into the political discourse.

Nowhere is this obligation more vivid than the debate over climate change. Contrary to the consensus of scientific agencies worldwide, the president has called climate change a “hoax” (though his position may be shifting), while his EPA administrator has denied even the most basic link to carbon dioxide as a cause.

It’s another sign that we, as a society, are drifting away from the use of scientific reasoning to inform public policy. And the outcome is clear: a misinformed voting public and the passage of policies to benefit special interests.

Using data to meet predetermined goals

We saw this dynamic at work when President Trump announced his intention to withdraw from the Paris Agreement on climate change. In making his case, he presented an ominous economic future: “2.7 million lost jobs by 2025,” and industries devastated by 2040: “Paper – down 12 percent. Cement – down 23 percent. Iron and steel – down 38 percent. Coal – and I happen to love the coal miners – down 86 percent. Natural gas – down 31 percent.”

These data were drawn from a study – one study! – funded by the American Council for Capital Formation, a pro-business lobbying group, and conducted by National Economic Research Associates (NERA), a consulting firm for industrial clients often opposed to environmental regulations. The New York Times Editorial Board called the data “nonsense” and “a cornucopia of dystopian, dishonest and discredited data based on numbers from industry-friendly sources.”

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At the 232nd ECS Meeting, we will feature the ECS Career Expo. This expo will be a tremendous platform for organizations to recruit potential employees from various backgrounds during ECS biannual meetings. This is an opportunity for employers to recruit the best and brightest in electrochemical and solid state sciences. The ECS Career Expo will serve as a perfect addition to our meeting and will help our job seeking attendees maximize their career potential by gaining access to a wide range of organizations.

Participating employers are offered the options to purchase a semi-private exhibit booth or an interview table to host interviews, meet and greets, or showcase their organizations. Both options include brand exposure through the meeting website, printed program and signage as well as the increase foot traffic on the exhibit floor which hosts our other exhibits and poster sessions.

Job seekers will be able to meet with employers to discuss career opportunities and how they may fit within their organization. Job hunting is stressful and competitive; let ECS aid you in your search for your seamless transition into a successful career.

If you have any questions or would like to get involved with the ECS Career Expo, contact our Director of Membership Services, Shannon.Reed@electrochem.org.

The 231st ECS Meeting took place last week in New Orleans, LA, where Way Kuo, president at City University of Hong Kong, delivered the ECS Lecture, “A Risk Look at Energy Development.” In his talk, Kuo highlighted the many risks we face every day, ranging from air pollution to auto accidents to cyber-attacks. While those risks exist, Kuo pointed out that the biggest risk today is energy and energy safety, including issues of energy consumption, global warming, and sustainability.

“Renewable energies have witnessed rapid development in recent years worldwide in a concerted effort to curb greenhouse gas emissions,” Kuo wrote in his meeting abstract. “And yet, wind power production still constitutes only 4% in the global power mix and solar PV represents 1%, while fossil fuels remain the world’s dominant energy source, accounting for around 65%. Coal, the main culprit for greenhouse gas emissions, represents 43% of fossil fuels, even though the coal-fired generation share of total electricity production is declining, and still causes 7 million death a year due to air pollution, according to the United Nations. Any discussion of energies today cannot neglect nuclear energy as a key base-load power, despite concerns about possible radiation leaks and nuclear waste.”

Recently, Kuo wrote an article in the South China Morning Post, where he discussed the importance of properly capturing and analyzing scientific data, which will improve our ability to predict and respond to disasters. The article, which was adapted from Kuo’s ECS Lecture, analyzes security issues related to everything from terrorism to foodborne illness.

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Over one million scientists and science advocates around the world took to the streets on April 22 to celebrate science and bring attention to the role it plays in improving lives, solving problems, and informing evidence-based policy.

In total, there were more than 600 marches in all 66 countries, on seven continents, and in all 50 states (including a few penguin marchers at the Monterey Bay Aquarium).

Get all the data and find out what states held the largest marches over on the March for Science’s blog.

And check out some of ECS’s pictures from the march on our Facebook page!

By: John C. Besley, Michigan State University; Aaron M. McCright, Michigan State University; Joseph D. Martin, University of Leeds; Kevin Elliott, Michigan State University, and Nagwan Zahry, Michigan State University

A soda company sponsoring nutrition research. An oil conglomerate helping fund a climate-related research meeting. Does the public care who’s paying for science?
In a word, yes. When industry funds science, credibility suffers. And this does not bode well for the types of public-private research partnerships that appear to be becoming more prevalent as government funding for research and development lags.

The recurring topic of conflict of interest has made headlines in recent weeks. The National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine has revised its conflict of interest guidelines following questions about whether members of a recent expert panel on GMOs had industry ties or other financial conflicts that were not disclosed in the panel’s final report.

Our own recent research speaks to how hard it may be for the public to see research as useful when produced with an industry partner, even when that company is just one of several collaborators.

What people think of funding sources

We asked our study volunteers what they thought about a proposed research partnership to study the potential risks related to either genetically modified foods or trans fats.

We randomly assigned participants to each evaluate one of 15 different research partnership arrangements – various combinations of scientists from a university, a government agency, a nongovernmental organization and a large food company.

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By: Rand Wilcox, University of Southern California – Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences

No matter the field, if a researcher is collecting data of any kind, at some point he is going to have to analyze it. And odds are he’ll turn to statistics to figure out what the data can tell him.

A wide range of disciplines – such as the social sciences, marketing, manufacturing, the pharmaceutical industry and physics – try to make inferences about a large population of individuals or things based on a relatively small sample. But many researchers are using antiquated statistical techniques that have a relatively high probability of steering them wrong. And that’s a problem if it means we’re misunderstanding how well a potential new drug works, or the effects of some treatment on a city’s water supply, for instance.

As a statistician who’s been following advances in the field, I know there are vastly improved methods for comparing groups of individuals or things, as well as understanding the association between two or more variables. These modern robust methods offer the opportunity to achieve a more accurate and more nuanced understanding of data. The trouble is that these better techniques have been slow to make inroads within the larger scientific community.

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ECS is proud to partner with the March for Science, a global event with almost 400 satellite marches taking place on April 22.

ECS has fully endorsed the March’s non-partisan, educational, and diversity goals and encourages its members to adhere to these values as they get involved in one of the numerous marches taking place throughout the world. You can help represent ECS at your march by using our #FreetheScience graphic on your signs.

And before you take to the streets on Earth Day, check out a few essential reads on the origins of the march and what those taking part hope to accomplish.

From the lab to the streets

Mother Jones sits down with the organizers of the march and look at the reasons behind the mobilization efforts, including pulling scientific funding, budgets cuts to science agencies, downsizing or outright eliminating science advisors in government, and roll backs of agency work based on public health research.

The organizers discuss their goals of championing more public engagement, evidence-based policies, and general science advocacy while balancing the over politicization of the field.

“I would actually argue that science is political,” Valorie Aquino, co-organizer of the march, tells Mother Jones. “Scientific integrity goes beyond one person eroding it. It hits across both sides of the aisle and people who aren’t necessarily affiliated with a political party at all.”

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