At the 227th ECS Meeting in Chicago, IL, the ECS Board of Directors voted to approve our newest ECS student chapters. Welcome to ECS:

• Belgium Student Chapter – Sebastien Moitzheim, Chapter President
• Illinois Institute of Technology Student Chapter – Lin Chen, Chapter President

Are you looking to start your own ECS student chapter? The next opportunity is right around the corner.

• Guidelines for Starting a Student Chapter
• Student Chapter Application
• Student Membership Information

Time-frame for approval at the 228th ECS Meeting in Phoenix, AZ:

• Student Chapter Applications Due to ECS Headquarters – Friday, September 4, 2015
• Individual Membership Committee Approval – Monday, October 12, 2015
• Board of Directors Approval – Thursday, October 16, 2015
• Notification of Status – Week of October 19, 2015

For more information about student chapters, contact Beth Fisher at beth.fisher@electrochem.org.

From New Mexico State University, Dr. Luo presents award check to ECS Student Member & ECS Edward G. Weston Summer Fellowship Recipient, Mr. Chen.

Beginning in 1928, these awards have been established over the years to assist students during the summer months in pursuit of work in the field of interest to The Electrochemical Society.

Announcing the ECS 2015 Summer Fellowship Recipients

Mr. Gen Chen
New Mexico State University
Advisor, Dr. Hongmei Luo
Edward G. Weston Summer Fellowship

Mr. Hadi Khani
Mississippi State University
Advisor, Dr. David Wipf
Colin Garfield Fink Summer Fellowship

Mr. Mohammad Mahdi Hasani-Sadrabadi
Georgia Institute of Technology
Advisor, Dr. Karl I. Jacob
Joseph W. Richards Summer Fellowship

University of Cambridge Ph.D. candidate, Raphaële Clément (left), receives her ECS 2015 Summer Fellowship award check from adviser & ECS member, Professor Clare Grey (right).

Ms. Raphaele Clement
University of Cambridge
Advisor, Dr. Clare Grey
F. M. Becket Summer Fellowship

Mr. Alexander Pak
University of Texas at Austin
Advisor, Dr. Gyeong S. Hwang
Herbert H. Uhlig Summer Fellowship

Summer Fellowship Subcommittee (through the ECS Education Committee)
Mark Orazem
Vimal Chaitanya
Kalpathay Sundaram
Bryan Chin
Peter Mascher

Are you interested in supporting the ECS Summer Fellowship program or creating a new fellowship through ECS? Contact us for more information.

Vimal Chaitanya, member of the ECS Education Committee, Heather Barkholtz, Jonathan Kucharyson, Maria Lukatskaya, ECS President Paul Kohl. (Not pictured Rajankumar Patel)

Each biannual meeting hosts a general student poster session and presents awards representing two categories: electrochemical and solid state science and technology.

Winners (pictured) were honored at the 227th ECS Meeting in Chicago on Wednesday May 27, 2015.

Here are the winners:

1^st Place – Electrochemical
Jonathan Kucharyson
University of Michigan
Poster Number 2241
Stability Assessment and Charge Storage Mechanism of Vanadium (III) Acetylacetonate Complexes for Non-Aqueous Redox Flow Batteries

2^nd Place – Electrochemical
Maria Lukatskaya
Drexel University
Poster Number 2235
Cation Intercalation of High Volumetric Capacitance of Two-Dimensional Titanium Carbide

1^st Place – Solid State
Heather Barkholtz
Northern Illinois University
Poster Number 2208
Highly Active Non-PGM Catalysts Prepared from Metal Organic Frameworks

2^nd Place – Solid State
Rajankumar Patel
Missouri University of Science & Technology
Poster Number 2216
Lithium-Ion Battery Cathodes Coated with Ultra-Thin Conductive Films for Long Cycle Life

This poster session provides a forum for graduate and undergraduate students to present research results of general interest to ECS. The purpose of this session is to foster promote work in both electrochemical and solid-state science and technology, and to stimulate active student interest and participation in ECS.

Cash prizes are given to the presenting student author on each winning paper; the amounts are awarded at the discretion of the organizers and judges.

Your next chance will be at the 229th ECS Meeting in San Diego. Look for the call for papers soon!

“The Big Bang Theory” is making history by creating the first television-inspired scholarship to help advance students in STEM.

Students pursing science, technology, engineering, and math degrees at UCLA are eligible for the scholarship, which is currently endowed at $4 million.

“We have all been given a gift with ‘The Big Bang Theory,’ a show that’s not only based in the scientific community, but also enthusiastically supported by that same community. This is our opportunity to give back,” said series creator Chuck Lorre.

This from UCLA:

For the 2015–16 academic year, 20 Big Bang Theory scholars will be selected to receive financial assistance. Each year in perpetuity, five additional scholars will be chosen. Scholarships will be awarded based on financial need to low-income students who have earned admission to UCLA based on academic merit but need additional support to bridge the gap between typical levels of financial aid and the cost of attendance.

Read the full article here.

Dr. Alvin Salkind with ECS Executive Director Roque Calvo at ECS headquaters May 19, 2015.

We have some very sad news. Long time ECS member, Dr. Alvin Salkind has died. He joined The Electrochemical Society in 1953 and continued as a member in good standing for more than 62 years.

This message from his family:

Dear ECS Society members,

We are sad to let you know that our father, Dr. Alvin J. Salkind, a fellow of the Electrochemical Society, passed away on Tuesday at the age of 87. Funeral services will be on Friday, June 12 at 10am at the Mather-Hodge Funeral Home, 40 Vandeventer Ave., Princeton NJ 08542. All are welcome to join us to celebrate his life and career.

James and Susanne

The first thing you need to know is that Dr. Salkind literally wrote the books on electrochemistry and alkaline batteries: Techniques of Electrochemistry Vol 1-3 with Ernest Yeager and Alkaline Storage Batteries with S. Uno Falk.

The ECS Digital Library will give you an idea of how important he was.

To say he was a friend of the Society is an understatement. He lived near the home office and made frequent visits. The picture above is from his latest visit. He was just here May 19th so Roque Calvo, ECS Executive Director, could interview him on video about his life (we’ll have that video soon). He was a pleasure and had lots of great stories.

Below is just a little from notes we gathered from the research we dug up from various sources about Dr. Salkind as we planned for the video interview:

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Top 30* includes student chapters such as the Research Triangle Student Chapter. Officers include Isvar Cordova, Dominica H. C. Wong, James Daubert, and Marty Dufficy.

“I joined ECS because of its reputation in the field of electrochemistry and its focus on supporting its members. While a member of ECS, I have had the opportunity to meet and talk with experts in the field of electrochemistry that I would not have been able to do if I was not an ECS member. ECS provides opportunities for students to not only interact with local electrochemists, but to also travel to international meetings to meet and talk with experts in the field.”

James Daubert, PhD student
North Carolina State University

ECS staff recently analyzed membership data to determine which universities had the greatest presence within the society. Here is what we discovered:

 Top 30* Universities by ECS Student Members

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Join the ECS Montreal Student Chapter for the 5th ECS Montreal Student Symposium.

This is an annual meeting for electrochemistry and materials science students in Montreal, Canada.

Abstract submission is now open until May 27, 2015. Submissions may be emailed here.

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Chemical phase map showing how the electrochemical discharge of iron fluoride microwires proceeded from 0 percent discharge (left), to 50 percent (middle), to 95 percent.
Source: AZO Materials

ECS student member Linsen Li, along with former member Song Jin, have recently completed the first part of their study focusing on the powerful potential of iron fluoride in lithium-ion batteries, which can improve energy storage.

“In the past, we weren’t able to truly understand what is happening to iron fluoride during battery reactions because other battery components were getting in the way of getting a precise image,” said Linsen Li, graduate student and research assistant at the University of Wisconsin – Madison.

This development will likely impact energy storage and could, in the future, advance large-scale renewable energy storage technologies if the researchers can maximize the cycling performance and efficiency of the low-cost fluoride lithium-ion battery materials.

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Opening of the ECS Korea Section-KIST Joint Symposium on Electrochemical CO₂ Conversion in Gwangju, South Korea.

The Korea Section Symposium (Organizers: Prof. Yung-Eun Sung, Prof. Soo-Kil Kim and Dr. Byoung Koun Min) was held on April 2, 2015 at the Kimdaejung Convention Center in Gwangju, Korea.

This year, the event was held as a Joint Symposium with the Korea Institute of Science and Technology, with the title “ECS Korea Section-KIST Joint Symposium on Electrochemical CO₂ Conversion.” It was composed of seven talks on electrocatalysts and systems for electrochemical reduction of CO₂.

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What better day than Earth Day to highlight the work of ECS member Luke Haverhals, an assistant professor at Bradley University working in novel types of energy storage and conversion through the utilization of renewable, sustainable substrates such as hemp, wood, and silk.

Haverhals is a former student of current ECS 3rd Vice-President Johna Leddy. Since departing from Leddy and the University of Iowa, Haverhals has worked in an area focused on wielding natural fibers using ionic liquids (i.e. enhanced energy conversion devices).

Ionic liquids have been gaining much notoriety lately, with potential game changing electrolytes for energy conversion devices ranging from batteries to fuel cells.

Make sure to join Haverhals and other scientists pioneering world-changing research by joining ECS today and attending our upcoming scientific meeting!