By: Alyssa Doyle, ECS Membership Intern

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ECS would like to congratulate the 2017 Outstanding Student Chapter winner, the University of Maryland for their dedication and commitment to the advancement of solid state and electrochemical science and technology.

The award (formerly The Gwendolyn B. Wood Section Excellence Award) was first created in 2012 to distinguish student chapters that represent and uphold ECS’s mission by maintaining an active student membership base, participating in various technical activities, and organizing community outreach in the fields of electrochemical and solid state science and engineering education.

The University of Maryland student chapter has come a long way since its initial approval in 2011 and has become one of ECS’s most exemplary chapters. The chapter previously won the Outstanding Student Chapter award in 2013 and has been a Chapter of Excellence for the last three years.

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By: Alyssa Doyle, ECS Membership Intern

As a student registrant, you have several unique opportunities to get involved in the 232nd ECS Meeting in National Harbor, MD.

Student Mixer (sponsored by BMW)
As an upcoming leader in the electrochemistry and solid state science professions, students are encouraged to attend the mixer to network with their future colleagues. Light refreshments and food will be available.

The event is being held on Monday from 1900-2100h. Student member tickets are $5 and student nonmember tickets $15.

Career Expo
A pilot-program for the society biannual meeting, the event creates the opportunity for employers/recruiters to meet and interview job-seekers, volunteers, and post-doctoral candidates in electrochemistry and solid state science.

The event will be located in the Exhibit Hall during the technical exhibit hours. Free to all meeting registrants.

Author Information Session
Join Robert Savinell, Dennis Hess, and Jeff Fergus for insight into opportunities available for publishing with ECS, understanding the journals continuous publication model and types of articles published by ECS, how to publish open access and how ECS’s Free the Science initiative supports open access for authors, where content is accessible after publication, and more.

The event will be located in Maryland 4 on Tuesday from 1600h-1700h. Open to all meeting attendees.

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By: John Staser, division vice chair and Assistant Professor at Ohio University

As vice chair of the Industrial Electrochemistry and Electrochemical Engineering Division, it is with great pleasure that I introduce the summer 2017 edition of Interface.

The authors of the articles you are about to read all worked tirelessly, and we owe them acknowledgement and significant gratitude for putting this issue together. Without their contributions, we would not be able to deliver the consistent quality of content that you expect in Interface.

We as a division hope to highlight the diverse activities of our members.

In the following pages you will find articles authored by industrial and academic members, with foci ranging from environmental applications to mathematical modeling to large-scale industrial production of metals. Such breadth is evidence that our division’s activities, as has been the case in the past, are ever evolving.

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By: Laura Villano, Publications Intern

Laura Villano, Publications Intern (Click to enlarge.)

The purpose of an internship is to benefit both the student and organization. For that reason, I believe my internship at ECS was a success. I gained valuable experience, new skill sets, and many new acquaintances, as well as benefitted the Society. My name is Laura Villano and I am a senior marketing major at The College of New Jersey. During my time at ECS, I worked as an intern for Beth Craanen in the publications department. When I first applied, I was thrilled by the idea of working for a nonprofit and trying to make a difference. The more I learned about ECS and its Free the Science campaign, the more I found myself bragging to my family and friends about the company I interned for.

During my time in the publications department, I performed many marketing duties for ECS’s various publications. The beginning of my internship focused mostly on writing-based projects. I created blog posts and emails regarding subscriptions, journal focus issues, author information sessions, and several other various mini-marketing campaigns. The scope of my internship changed over my six months at ECS, and those duties slowly transformed into more digital advertising and graphic design projects. I transitioned into creating digital advertisements such as banner and carousel ads for the ECS website. I also created flyers about the content in the ECS Digital Library and subscription packages. If you are a member of ECS and attended the New Orleans meeting, you may have also seen some of the larger signage I created!

One of my favorite projects at ECS was helping to redesign the ECS Transactions logo and cover. Unfortunately, I had to leave the internship before the project was carried out but I am excited to see the final product in the future. I thoroughly enjoyed working on the projects with all of the ECS staff. Everyone was friendly and always willing to help.

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ECS Transactions 77(11) “Selected Proceedings from the 231st ECS Meeting: New Orleans, LA – Spring 2017,” has just been published.

This issue contains papers from the following symposia:

A01 – Battery and Energy Technology Joint General Session

A02 – Large-Scale Energy Storage 8

A04 – Battery Safety

A05 – Lithium-Ion Batteries and Beyond

A06 – Battery Student Slam 1

B01 – Carbon Nanostructures for Energy Conversion

B02 – Carbon Nanostructures in Medicine and Biology

B04 – Endofullerenes and Carbon Nanocapsules

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A new issue of ECS Transactions (ECST) has just been published. This issue incorporates 333 papers from the upcoming 15th International Symposium on Solid Oxide Fuel Cells (SOFC-XV). This conference will be held in Hollywood, Florida, USA, July 23-28, 2017.

ECST Volume 78, Issue 1 is now available in the ECS Digital Library. This issue is also available for purchase as an electronic (PDF) edition through the ECS Online Store.

Learn more about this upcoming conference and find out more about ECST.

Nine new issues of ECS Transactions (ECST) have just been added to the ECS Online Store for pre-order. The following issues of ECST will be published from symposia held during the 232nd ECS Meeting in National Harbor, and will be available in limited quantities for pick-up at the meeting.

Electronic (PDF) editions will be made available for purchase beginning September 22, 2017. To pre-order a CD/USB edition, please follow the links below:

1. 1. Semiconductors, Dielectrics, and Metals for Nanoelectronics 15: In Memory of Samares Kar
2. 2. 15th International Symposium on Semiconductor Cleaning Science and Technology (SCST 15)
3. 3. Atomic Layer Deposition Applications 13
4. 4. Semiconductor Process Integration 10
5. 5. Thermoelectric and Thermal Interface Materials 3
6. 6. Low-Dimensional Nanoscale Electronic and Photonic Devices 10
7. 7. Gallium Nitride and Silicon Carbide Power Technologies 7
8. 8. Polymer Electrolyte Fuel Cells 17 (PEFC 17)
9. 9. Ionic and Mixed Conducting Ceramics 11 (IMCC 11)

Please be sure to place your order by September 1, 2017, to reserve your copy.

Questions? Contact ECST@electrochem.org for more information.

By: Josh Billy, The Ohio State University

The 232nd ECS Meeting will be featuring several new events, including the ECS Career Expo. As a PhD candidate moving ever-closer to defending my thesis, I couldn’t be more excited for this new addition.

I have been to three ECS biannual meetings and several local chapter events as a graduate student. I’ve used meetings to share my work, learn about a lot of interesting research from other groups, and perhaps most importantly, network. Meeting fellow electrochemists, especially those working on projects related to mine, is difficult to do anywhere other than ECS meetings. In a similar way, I’ve struggled to come across electrochemistry positions during my job search.

Because it’s always important to think ahead, I used the sponsor exhibits at previous meetings as a makeshift career fair. In Hawaii last year, I made my way around the booths and spoke to exhibitors while trying to get a feel for what types of jobs they might have available. The problem with the sponsor exhibit, however, is that the job types are limited; companies with sponsor exhibits are mostly (this is not always the case) making products that researchers use rather than for general consumers. The truth is that there are many more companies with electrochemistry positions available not previously represented at ECS meetings. The new ECS Career Expo will hopefully change that.

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By: Delaney Hellman, ECS Development Associate

ECS is proud to announce that at the upcoming 232nd ECS Meeting, we will be hosting our first OpenCon satellite event! OpenCon is a conference that places a spotlight, produces discussion, and increases collaboration on issues of open access, open science, open data, open source, and open education. Initially hosted by the Right2Research Coalition and SPARC, satellite events can be held by anyone with an interest in the subject matter. As ECS works to advance its Free the Science initiative, we want to be at the forefront of the open discussion in our industry.

The event is completely free to attend on October 1, from 2:00 – 6:00 pm.

Don’t miss speakers from Dryad, The Gates Foundation, SPARC, Center for Open Science, and more.

RSVP as soon as possible: http://www.opencon2017.org/ecs_opencon_2017

By: Delaney Hellman, ECS Development Associate

Sci-Hub launched a few years back when Alexandra Elbakyan of Kazakhstan was struggling to find affordable and relevant research through her institution. Fast forward to 2017 and Sci-Hub serves as one of the most common sites that seeks to circumvent paywalls and provide access to scholarly literature.

While 25 percent of scholarly documents on the web are now open access, thanks to the growing movement, Sci-Hub offers access to around 62 million academic articles. Its unconvincing legality has caught the attention of major proponents of publishing, including Elsevier.

Despite the whirl-wind of controversy surrounding the site’s launch, Sci-Hub data was able to answer some important questions: who needs access to research, what do they need access to, and how much do they lack access to?

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