General Student Poster Session award winners from left to right: Jae Young Yoo, Hao Wang, Tammy Pham, Mario Cedano, David Reber

Established in 1993, the General Student Poster Session Awards acknowledge the eminence of a students’ work. The winners display an understanding of their research topic and its relation fields of interests to ECS.

Eligibility for the General Student Poster Session Awards requires students to submit their abstracts to the Z01 General Student Poster Session symposium and present their posters at the biannual meeting.

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Membership continues to play a very important role in the success of The Electrochemical Society. During the month of March, ECS hosted a spring membership campaign that featured 13 stories about our members.

Membership with ECS is more than the discounts. Membership is access to the latest scientific research, a commitment to the dissemination of research, and an opportunity for you to build your career with an international network of peers.

Shirley Meng, secretary of the Battery Division, says “The Society is over 100 years old. We should think about what we’ll look like 100 years from now.” Research shows that people join membership organizations, like ECS, to have access to a peer network and to advance their careers. ECS continues to encourage members to invite new individuals to get involved in the organization; and, to engage those nonmembers with interests in electrochemistry and solid state science to learn more about ECS and share in the mission to Free the Science.

The goal of the drive was to recruit 100 new members to the organization. With the help of current members, we successfully recruited 81 new members and 86 new student members! In addition to the new members and student members, 68 of our members renewed their membership along with 21 student membership renewals.

Overall, ECS recruited 167 new members and 89 members renewed! This is 173% growth over the March 2017 membership applications/renewals.

Thank you to all of the members who helped to recruit new members to the Society and for those members that renewed during the month of March.

This is the final week of the ECS March Membership Drive! Over the last three weeks, we have shared stories from ECS members and the positive impact it has had on careers, networking, and community.

To date we have had 62 new members join ECS along with 58 new student members. In addition, we have had 62 members and 17 student members renew their memberships.

Our goal is to have 100 new (non-student) members join ECS during March. We have until March 31 to achieve this goal!

If you are not a member, then take this opportunity to expand your professional network, collaborate on a project, or to serve in a society that treats you as family.

If you are a member, know that you help to connect nonmembers directly to the Society. People join for people – recruit your peers!

JOIN                                      RENEW

Take a minute to share how being part of ECS has affected your life. Share your story.

The University of Maryland was the 2017 Outstanding Student Chapter Award winner. Learn more about their chapter activities.

The ECS Outstanding Student Chapter Award was established in 2012 to recognize distinguished student chapters that demonstrate active participation in The Electrochemical Society’s technical activities, establish community and outreach activities in the areas of electrochemical and solid state science and engineering education, and create and maintain a robust membership base.

Click here for complete rules and nomination requirements. Nominations are being accepted for the 2018 award, which will be presented at the AiMES 2018 meeting in Cancun, Mexico from September 30 – October 4, 2018.

The recipient of the Outstanding Student Chapter Award receives a recognition plaque, $1,000 USD in additional student chapter funding, and additional recognition throughout the Society in Interface, the ECS blog, etc.

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Raymond J. Gorte, Yang Shao-Horn, and M. Stanley Whittingham, all of whom are ECS fellows, were recently elected to the National Academy of Engineering. Election to the NAE is one of the most prestigious professional distinctions bestowed upon engineers.

According to the NAE, academy membership honors individuals who have made outstanding contributions to “engineering research, practice, or education, including, where appropriate, significant contributions to the engineering literature” and to “the pioneering of new and developing fields of technology, making major advancements in traditional fields of engineering, or developing/implementing innovative approaches to engineering education.”

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Alyssa Doyle, ECS membership intern

My name is Alyssa Doyle, and I had the privilege of interning with The Electrochemical Society’s Membership Services Department for a semester. When I first began my internship in August of 2017, I wasn’t sure exactly what to expect. I wasn’t all that familiar with nonprofit operations, and as a junior English major at The College of New Jersey, I knew practically nothing about electrochemistry. I’m going to be honest—I was quite nervous, but I was also incredibly excited by the prospect of acquiring knowledge about an entirely new subject.

From the moment I arrived, I was quickly immersed in ECS’s mission and culture. I learned a lot about ECS’s Free the Science campaign, and as a student who is interested in publishing, I was intrigued by the possibility of open access. When I first heard about the initiative, I deeply admired ECS for their desire to provide free research to people across the world with the hopes of increasing the sustainability of the planet—I still do, but now even more so.

Throughout my internship, I worked on various rewarding, engaging, and meaningful projects—there’s no getting coffee here. Instead, I had the chance to write blog posts about award winners and upcoming ECS meetings and events, and I was able to participate in the preparation for the 232nd ECS Meeting in National Harbor by completing mini projects, such as creating volunteer schedules, confirming registrants, and writing bios for speakers. I also had the opportunity to work on longer projects as well by maintaining contact with ECS’s 67 student chapters and creating a list of prospective employers to reach out to about ECS’s Career Expo. Even within the last week at my internship, I put together a timeline of the Edward Acheson Award and had the chance to read through Transactions of the American Electrochemical Society from 1903 onward. Each project was incredibly fascinating, and I started each day ready to tackle a new task.

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Graduate students in the U.S. are fighting the House Republican proposed tax plan, demonstrating protests and walk-outs in more than 40 universities across the country on Wednesday, November 29.

The current bill, which passed the House this month, includes a provision that would turn tuition waivers into taxable income. Students and economists alike state that such a provision would make continuing education unaffordable and inaccessible to many.

For many students pursing a PhD, tuition waivers and stipends are essential in making such a degree affordable. In return for taking up a position as a teaching assistant, fellow, or as a research assistant in a lab, graduate student receive a small stipend to support themselves, which Forbes estimates falls anywhere between $20,000 and $30,000 per year. Additionally, students receive tuition waivers ranging from $12,000 to $50,000 per year (depending on the university), which are paid directly by the university to the university on the student’s behalf. While students pay taxes on the stipend, the tuition waiver is non-taxable income that never even passes through the student’s hands.

The new GOP tax plan could change all of that.

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