Every year, we celebrate International Women’s Day on March 8 as a way to commemorate the movement for women’s rights. This global holiday honors the social, economic, cultural, political – and in our case – scientific achievements of women.

Additionally, International Women’s Day also marks a call to action for accelerating gender parity. Currently, women remain underrepresented in the STEM workforce, although to a lesser degree than the past. According to the National Science Foundation, the greatest gender disparities still exist in the fields of engineering, computer science, and physical science.

In the U.S., women make up half of the entire workforce, but only 29 percent of the science and engineering field. While the gender gap may still exist for women in STEM, many phenomenal female scientists have entered the field over the years and left an indelible mark on the science.

Take Nettie Stevens (born 1861), the foremost researcher in sex determination, whose work was initially rejected because of her sex. Or Mary Engle Pennington (born 1872), an American chemist at the turn of the 20th century, pioneering research that allows us to process, store, and ship food safely. Barbara McClintock (born 1902) was deemed crazy when she suggested that genes jump from chromosome to chromosome. Of course, she was later awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for her discovery of genetic transportation.

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Only one month left to save $125 on registration!

The 233rd ECS Meeting will take place May 13-17, 2018 at the Seattle Sheraton and Washington State Convention Center.

If our strong technical program, of over 2,600 abstracts being presented in 43 symposia across five days, wasn’t enough of a reason to join us, check out some of the other exciting events taking place in Seattle.

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The 2018 Society elections are upon us and ECS wants you to learn more about the candidates, from the candidates. All voting members are eligible to participate via electronic proxy.

About ECS elections

The early months of each year are an exciting time here at ECS as officer elections take place via electronic proxy in the two-month period from January 15 to March 15, 2018. Elected officers constitute the organization’s executive committee and include the following positions: president, three vice presidents, secretary, and treasurer. The nominating committee determines the candidates and you determine the winner.

This Q&A series allows you a personal glimpse of each volunteer on the current ballot. There is a total of five candidates (one for president and two each for vice president and treasurer). Take a moment to read the full candidate biography and election statement.

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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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By: Nir Kshetri, University of North Carolina – Greensboro

The world is full of connected devices – and more are coming. In 2017, there were an estimated 8.4 billion internet-enabled thermostats, cameras, streetlights and other electronics. By 2020 that number could exceed 20 billion, and by 2030 there could be 500 billion or more. Because they’ll all be online all the time, each of those devices – whether a voice-recognition personal assistant or a pay-by-phone parking meter or a temperature sensor deep in an industrial robot – will be vulnerable to a cyberattack and could even be part of one.

Today, many “smart” internet-connected devices are made by large companies with well-known brand names, like Google, Apple, Microsoft and Samsung, which have both the technological systems and the marketing incentive to fix any security problems quickly. But that’s not the case in the increasingly crowded world of smaller internet-enabled devices, like light bulbs, doorbells and even packages shipped by UPS. Those devices – and their digital “brains” – are typically made by unknown companies, many in developing countries, without the funds or ability – or the brand-recognition need – to incorporate strong security features.

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Researchers at KTH have successfully tested a new material that can be used for cheap and large-scale production of hydrogen – a promising alternative to fossil fuel.

Precious metals are the standard catalyst material used for extracting hydrogen from water. The problem is these materials – such as platinum, ruthenium and iridium – are too costly to make the process viable. A team from KTH Royal Institute of Technology recently announced a breakthrough that could change the economics of a hydrogen economy.

Led by Licheng Sun, professor of molecular electronics at KTH Royal Institute of Technology, the researchers concluded that precious metals can be replaced by a much cheaper combination of nickel, iron and copper (NiFeCu).

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Lenses are no longer necessary for some microscopes, according to the engineers developing FlatScope, a thin fluorescent microscope whose abilities promise to surpass those of old-school devices.

A paper in Science Advances describes a wide-field microscope thinner than a credit card, small enough to sit on a fingertip, and capable of micrometer resolution over a volume of several cubic millimeters.

FlatScope eliminates the tradeoff that hinders traditional microscopes in which arrays of lenses can either gather less light from a large field of view or gather more light from a smaller field.

Rice University engineers Ashok Veeraraghavan, Jacob Robinson, Richard Baraniuk, and their labs began developing the device as part of a federal initiative by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency as an implantable, high-resolution neural interface. But the device’s potential is much greater.

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Researchers have created an algorithm that could work alongside an extremely sensitive laser technology that reflects off nearby objects to help self-driving cars see around corners.

Imagine that a driverless car is making its way through a winding neighborhood street, about to make a sharp turn onto a road where a child’s ball is rolling across the street. Although no person in the car can see that ball, the car stops to avoid it.

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Deadline for Submitting Abstracts
March 16, 2018
Submit today!

Topic Close-up #9

Symposium G03: SiGe, Ge, and Related Compounds: Materials, Processing, and Devices 8

Symposium Focus: This meeting is the 8th International ECS SiGe Symposium for the past 16 years (www.sigesymposium.com). It will provide a forum for people from industry, research institutions, and academics around the world to gather together in an unique and relaxed environment, reviewing and discussing materials and device related aspects of SiGe, Ge, and Related Compounds (Group IV incl. C and Sn alloys, and III/V on Si, as well as 2D materials). There are 10 areas of interests covering very broad spectrum from devices to fundamental material characterization, to stimulate information exchange and innovations, 1) Heterojunction Bipolar Transistors, 2) FET Technology, 3) Optoelectronics, 4) Epitaxy, 5) Emerging Applications, 6) Processing, 7) Strain Engineering, 8) Surfaces and Interfaces, 9) Related Compounds, 10) Metrology and Characterization.

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Join us as ECS comes to the Seattle Sheraton and Washington State Convention Center in Seattle, WA! Our strong technical program of 2,600 abstracts being presented in 46 symposia over five days will have something for everyone!

ECS meetings are well known for their strength in areas such as batteries/energy storage, fuel cells/energy conversion, carbon nanostructures, semiconductors, sensors, corrosion, and more. In addition, the Seattle meeting will explore newer areas such as materials recycling, data science for modeling and design, consumer products, and flexible electronics.

Take a moment and read a few topic close-ups, and see what is in store!

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