Dirk Guldi of the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg will be awarded the 2015 Nanocarbons Division Richard E. Smalley Research Award for his outstanding contributions to the areas of charge-separation in donor-acceptor materials and construction of nanostructured thin films for solar energy conversion.

The prestigious award was established in 2006 to recognize in a broad sense, those persons who have made outstanding contributions to the understanding and applications of fullerenes.

Dr. Guldi’s career has a robust background in academia and research. He has held positions at Notre Dame Radiation Laboratory, and has also served as the Associate Editor of the journal Nanoscale. Since 2004, Dr. Guldi has authored or co-authored more than 300 peer-reviewed articles and has been named among the world’s 2014 Highly Cited Researchers by Thomas Reuters.

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Henry B. Linford Award

Henry B. Linford was a distinguished professor of chemical engineering at Columbia University and known for his work and research in electroplating and corrosion of metals. With a Society history dating back to 1936, Dr. Linford served as ECS secretary for 10 years and president of The Electrochemical Society from 1961-62.

Through his role as an educator and work in electroplating and corrosion, Dr. Linford became one of the most highly recognized members of ECS. In 1936, Henry B. Linford was awarded the Weston Fellowship of $1,000 from The Electrochemical Society. The Weston Fellowship remains an ECS award as part of the our Summer Fellowships program. Dr. Linford was also the recipient of the Acheson Medal and Prize in 1960.

The Henry B. Linford Award for Distinguished Teaching was established in 1981 for excellence in teaching in subject areas of interest to the Society and continues the cycle of recognition. Submit your nominations today.

Application Deadline: April 15, 2015.

Vittorio de Nora Award

Electroless plating is the non-electrical plating of metals to achieve uniform coatings by a process of controlled autocatalytic reduction. We’ve seen a major expansion of electroless plating in plastics, as in the plating of printed electronic circuits. Today, a large number of consumer goods are coated by this method to create durable and attractive surfaces.

Electroless plating was co-discovered in 1944 by Dr. Abner Brenner who was also the first recipient of the ECS Vittorio de Nora Award. The de Nora Award was established in 1971 for contributions to the field of electrochemical engineering and technology. Submit your nominations today.

Application Deadline: April 15, 2015.

Cammy Abernathy of the University of Florida will be awarded the 2015 Electronics and Photonics Division Award for spearheading research in materials science and engineering through thin-film electronic material innovation and novel research in metal organic chemical vapor deposition.

The prestigious award was established in 1968 to encourage excellence in electronics research and outstanding technical contribution to the field of electronics science.

Dr. Abernathy started her journey through solid state science at MIT in 1980, where she received her degree in materials science and engineering. After furthering her education at Stanford University, Dr. Abernathy continued in the world of academia at the University of Florida. She was appointed the College’s Associate Dean for Academic Affairs in 2004, and currently holds the position of Dean of the College of Engineering.

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The 2014 Outstanding Student Chapter Award Plaque with Prof. Arumugam Manthiram (front left) with UT-Austin Student Chapter President (Josephine Cunningham, front middle) and Vice-President (Donald Robinson, front right) and student members Matthew West, Daeil Yoon, Ke-Yu Lai, and Benjamin Weaver (back left to right).

Submission deadline is March 31st for the ECS Outstanding Student Chapter Award.

Up to three winners will be selected. One Outstanding Student Chapter will be selected with the winner receiving $1,000, and recognition with a plaque and chapter group photo in  Interface. One or two additional Student Chapters may be selected as runners-up, and designated as Chapters of Excellence. Find out more.

The 2014 ECS Outstanding Student Chapter Award recipient was The University of Texas at Austin. Founded in 2007, The University of Texas at Austin Student Chapter has provided an interdisciplinary forum for students from different branches of the physical sciences and engineering to meet and discuss emerging ideas about electrochemistry and solid state sciences.

Led by faculty advisor Arumugam Manthiram and Chapter President Josephine Cunningham, the UT Austin Student Chapter has worked on improving the lives of the students and community in the Austin, TX area through outreach programs and organized seminars.

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ECS’s Energy Technology Division has presented three distinguished student awards to be accepted at the 227th ECS Meeting this May in Chicago, IL.

The Energy Technology Division Supramaniam Srinivasan Young Investigator Award will be presented to William Mustain of the University of Connecticut.

William Mustain earned a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering at the Illinois Institute of Technology in 2006, followed by two years as a Postdoctoral Fellow in ECS President Paul Kohl’s research group at Georgia Tech. He went on to join the Department of Chemical & Bimolecular Engineering gat the University of Connecticut in 2008.

Over the past twelve years, Prof. Mustain has worked in several areas related to electrochemical energy generation and storage, including: catalysts and supports for proton exchange membrane and anion exchange membrane fuel cells and electrolyzers, high capacity materials for Li-ion batteries, the purposeful use of carbonates in low temperature electrochemical systems, and the electrochemical conversion and utilizations of methane and CO₂.

Take a peak at his award address, “Near Room Temperature Conversion of Methane to Methanol.”

The Energy Technology Division Supramaniam Srinivasan Young Investigator Award was established in 2011 to recognize and reward an outstanding young researcher in the field of energy technology.

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The ECS Battery Division is now accepting award nominations.

Please help recognize outstanding contributions of The Electrochemical Society members to the science and technology of primary and secondary batteries and fuel cells through the Battery Division Awards Program.

Nominations are now being accepted for:

• Battery Division Research Award
• Battery Division Technology Award
• Battery Division Student Research Award

These annual awards have been established by the Division to encourage excellence in battery and fuel cell R&D, recognize promising young engineers and scientists and encourage their publication in the publications of the Electrochemical Society.

The deadline for nominations is March 30, 2015.

Before applying, please review the award rules and complete the appropriate form.

I strongly encourage you to submit your nominations. Thank you.

With my best regards,

Robert Kostecki
ECS Battery Division, Chair

ECS’s Industrial Electrochemistry and Electrochemical Engineering Division (IE&EE) has presented two distinguished student awards to be accepted at the 227th ECS Meeting this May in Chicago, IL.

The IE&EE Student Achievement Award will be presented to Mohammad Mahdi Hasani-Sadrabadi of the Georgia Institute of Technology.

Hasani-Sadrabadi is currently a graduate researcher studying bioengineering at Georgia Tech. Aside from his current studies, Hasani-Sadrabadi spent time at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, where he developed microfluidic platforms for controlled synthesis of polymeric nanoparticles. In 2007, he began his research on fuel cells while at Amirkabir University of Technology. He continued to establish the Biologically-Inspired Developing Advanced Research (BiDAR) group as an international collaborative research time. His main research area of interest is the development of bio-inspired nanomaterials for energy and biomedical applications. Take a peek at Hasani-Sadrabadi’s award address: “Anhydrous High-Proton Conductor Based on Ionic Nanopeapods.”

The IE&EE Student Achievement Award was established in 1989 to recognize promising young engineers and scientists in the field of electrochemical engineering and to encourage participants to initiate careers in this field. (more…)

Prof. Sundaram has received degrees from the University of Kerala, Indian Institute of Science, and the Indian Institute of Technology.

Kalpathy B. Sundaram of the University of Central Florida will be awarded the 2015 Dielectric Science and Technology Division Thomas D. Callinan Award at the ECS 227th Meeting in Chicago this May.

This prestigious award was established by ECS in 1967 to encourage excellence in dielectrics and insulation investigations, as well as recognize outstanding research contributions in the field.

Prof. Sundaram will receive this award for showing excellence in his field through his research in thin film technology for low dielectric constant and high-k dielectric materials. Both academic and industrial researchers and engineers cite Prof. Sundaram’s contributions in solving fundamental problems with high-k materials.

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ECS President Paul Kohl presented one of the Society’s esteemed awards at the 2014 ECS and SMEQ Joint International Meeting.

The Canada Section of The Electrochemical Society is currently seeking nominations for one of its prestigious awards.

W. Lash Miller Award

The Award has been created to honor the memory of W. Lash Miller, an eminent Canadian chemist. He was the Head of the Department of Chemistry at the University of Toronto and President of The Electrochemical Society in 1912. Lash Miller was one of the first proponents of Gibbsian thermodynamics in North America.

The W. Lash Miller Award of the ECS Canada Section was established in 1967 to recognize outstanding technical contribution to the field of electrochemical science and technology and/or solid state science and technology. The candidate must have demonstrated independent research in academia, industry or governmental laboratories.

To be considered for the award, a nominee must be residing in Canada and have obtained his/her last advanced education degree no more than 15 years before the year of the Award (for this cycle, 2015). The recipient does not need to be a member of ECS. The complete award rules may be found here.

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Cancun was my second meeting. What I’ve noticed so far is how giving everyone is. Total strangers, some very important ones, have been more than willing to share their science or help me understand the inner-workings of the Society. The meetings feel like safe places where I can ask stupid questions and be vulnerable. Which, they say, is the birthplace of innovation, creativity and change. (After you’ve read the highlights, go watch Brene Brown’s TED Talk  on The Power of Vulnerability. She has the research!)

Over 2,000 people attended the 2014 ECS and SMEQ Joint International Meeting in Cancun, Mexico. This was ECS’s first return visit to Cancun since 2006. Participants could choose among 51 symposia and 2,299 presentations.

(Look for photos on Facebook.)

Electrochemical Energy and Water Summit

Brainstorming breakout session at the Electrochemical Water and Energy Summit

In its first “Science for Solving Society’s Problems Challenge,” ECS partnered with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to leverage the brainpower of the many scientists in electrochemistry and solid state science and technology that regularly attend ECS meetings. The four grantees were identified during a multi-day workshop. Over 100 researchers were guided through a brainstorming and working group session with the theme of improving access to clean water and sanitation in developing countries. The winners:

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