Carolyn Graverson’s First Semester at Grad School

As part of our check-in with the COVID-19 series interviewees, we thought a student’s point of view would be interesting. When we spoke with Carolyn Graverson last spring, she was completing her senior year at Lewis University and preparing to pursue graduate studies in chemistry at Rice University. She was home from Rice when we spoke.

Still not your usual year

Carolyn’s first semester courses were “blended.” Two were fully online; others combined in-person and digital learning. As she worked in a lab and as a TA, Carolyn had high priority status to get weekly COVID-19 tests. These, plus mandatory indoor and outdoor mask-wearing, and students pledging to stay safe and isolate, made it comfortable for Carolyn to be on campus. She attended different groups’ virtual meetings and visited their labs in person to choose her research focus. As there were fewer in-person meetings, it wasn’t the same as pre-pandemic. Nonetheless, Carolyn is happy with her decision to join the Matthew R. Jones Lab, focusing on nanoparticle assembly and ligand design. (more…)

SanDisk—an ECS Sustaining Level Institutional Member for six years—announced plans to change the name of its Japanese entity to Western Digital GK as of January 1, 2021.

Western Digital provides NAND flash memory, drive devices-SDD (Solid State Drive) and HDD (Hard Disk Drive) to retail consumers, enterprises, and large-scale data centers. The company delivers top-level total storage solutions, developing and mass-producing multiple products, including WD® and SanDisk® brands. As part of ongoing integration activity, Western Digital is renaming certain legacy entities to align with the Western Digital name. Products will continue to be marketed under the Western Digital®, G-Technology™, SanDisk® and WD® brands. (more…)

2020 ECS Corrosion Division Morris Cohen Graduate Student Award Goes to Chao Liu

Each year, the ECS Corrosion Division recognizes outstanding academic achievements in corrosion science and/or engineering through the Morris Cohen Graduate Student Award. Congratulations to the 2020 Corrosion Division Morris Cohen Graduate Student Award winner, Chao (Gilbert) Liu of the Shell Technology Center. (more…)

The ECS Summer Fellowship Program assists students during the summer months of June through September to pursue work in a field of interest to ECS. The 2020 fellowship recipients are:

Edward G Weston Fellowship

“Towards Quantifying Ion Kinetics at Confined Nanointerfaces using Electrochemical Fluctuation Methods”
Andrew Pendergast (more…)

Are you a student working on energy storage and conversion? Join us at the 239th ECS Meeting with the 18th International Meeting on Chemical Sensors (IMCS) for the opportunity to present your research! The special symposium, entitled A04-Battery Student Slam 5, is dedicated to students working on energy storage and energy conversion.

The student slam offers students the opportunity to present flash oral presentations of their work in a 10-minute time slot. All students enrolled at any valid degree-granting institution may submit an abstract describing the presentation. New materials and designs, performance studies, and modeling of all types of batteries, supercapacitors and fuel cells, including aqueous, non-aqueous, polymer electrolytes, solid electrolytes, and flow systems are of particular interest. (more…)

With the completion of the year-long project to implement Single Sign On (SSO), the electrochemical and solid state community can now log in to the ECS website with just one set of credentials, and have access to all ECS-approved applications and websites without having to having to log in again. SSO simplifies username and password management while improving identity protection, decreasing “password fatigue.”

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At their next meeting, the ECS Board of Directors will vote on a proposal to change the name of the ECS Sponsorship Committee to the ECS Institutional Engagement Committee. The name change was proposed at a meeting during PRiME 2020.

 “We felt that the word ‘sponsorship’ did not clearly define the purpose of our committee. Our goal is to engage the broader electrochemical community. By defining our committee as the ECS Institutional Engagement Committee, we will reach both the academic and industrial members of our society,” said Committee Chair Marion Jones, of Scribner Associates, Inc.

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ECS Travel Grants provide financial assistance for early career electrochemists and Society members to participate in ECS meetings.

What is an ECS Travel Grant?

Many ECS divisions and sections offer travel grants to undergraduates, graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, young professionals, and faculty presenting papers at ECS biannual meetings. Applications must be submitted no later than the deadlines listed on the ECS website. ECS divisions and sections may have additional application requirements. Please review these additional requirements before filling out the online application. (more…)

Mark Orazem reflects on now, as opposed to then

When we started on our COVID-19 interview series, no one knew how long the pandemic would last or the long-term impact it would have on our community. As we approach the end of a year of living in the shadow of COVID-19, we thought it useful to follow up with some of our interviewees. We learned that research, collaboration, teaching, and learning are continuing to evolve—along with the challenges of distance learning, meeting, and life.

When we spoke with Mark Orazem last spring about the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, he was on a sabbatical that did not turn out as planned. Now he is back teaching at the University of Florida where he is Distinguished Professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering. (more…)