What do Koen Kas and Valerie Browning have in common? They were both chosen to deliver The Electrochemical Society (ECS) Lecture at meeting plenary sessions. ECS selects only the most prestigious and forward thinking specialists to present these lectures. Koen Kas delivered the ECS Lecture at the 235th ECS Meeting. Valerie Browning will present the ECS Lecture at the 236th ECS Meeting. Plenary session attendees get to meet the speakers. So be sure to mark your calendar for Browning’s presentation in October at the plenary session of the ECS Meeting.

The ECS Lecture presenters speak on topics that are important for electrochemical and solid state scientists. Koen Kas is a lifetime member of ECS.  A renaissance man, Kas is known as a healthcare futurist, entrepreneur, professor of molecular oncology, acclaimed international keynote speaker, and author.

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“Open data is the only way to move the world forward, learning from give and take to find new ways to connect the dots and have new insights, that is what electrochemistry has done already for hundreds of years.”
-Koen Kas

Koen Kas is a healthcare futurist, entrepreneur, professor of molecular oncology, acclaimed international keynote speaker, and author of Sick No More and Your Guide to Delight.

Koen is a professor of oncology at Ghent University in Belgium and chairs the scientific committee of the European Cancer Prevention Organization. He is also the founding CEO of HealthSkouts and partner at HealthStartup.eu, a social network of novel health start-ups.

You can meet Kas in person at the 235th ECS Meeting this May in Dallas, TX, where he will deliver the ECS Lecture, “Guardian Angels turning Sickcare into Healthcare.”

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The ECS Lecture during the 232nd ECS Meeting in National Harbor, MD, was delivered by Steven Chu. Chu is currently the William R. Kenan, Jr., Professor of Physics and Professor of Molecular & Cellular Physiology at Stanford. Previously, he served as U.S. Secretary of Energy under President Obama and was the co-recipient of the 1997 Nobel Prize in Physics for his contribution to laser cooling and atom trapping.

Chu’s ECS Lecture, “The Role of Electrochemistry in our Transition to Sustainable Energy,” focused on the risks society is facing due to changing climate, the evolving energy landscape, and the role of electrochemistry in providing critical technological advances.

During his lecture, Chu outlined the risks that modern society faces, which demand technological innovation to provide solutions. Namely, Chu stated that the rising climate poses significant risks to the global community. According to Chu, the Earth has warmed by an alarming one degree Celsius since 1975.

“One degree Celsius does not sound like a lot, but just a couple of degrees warmer would make a dramatic difference,” Chu said. “If the Earth does warm by two degrees Celsius, Boston will be underwater.”

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