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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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. You would have received an email with voting instructions January 15, 2018.

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.

Three Questions with the Candidates 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 biographies and election statements. And then enjoy their reflections on ECS and the marvel that is science.

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At each of our biannual meetings, ECS works with our education committee to provide professional development programming to help our students and young professionals develop skills for their current and future careers. ECS provides new topics at each meeting and helps attendees build their professional network.

ECS invites your organization to get involved and support these initiatives through a sponsorship. Below are the sponsorship options for our 233rd meeting in Seattle, WA. ECS is looking forward to the largest spring meeting to date and we want to help your company make connections while promoting your organization to your target audience.

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By: Clifford Johnson, University of Southern California – Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences

Science is one thread of culture – and entertainment, including graphic books, can reflect that. ‘The Dialogues,’ by Clifford V. Johnson (MIT Press 2017), CC BY-ND

How often do you, outside the requirements of an assignment, ponder things like the workings of a distant star, the innards of your phone camera, or the number and layout of petals on a flower? Maybe a little bit, maybe never. Too often, people regard science as sitting outside the general culture: A specialized, difficult topic carried out by somewhat strange people with arcane talents. It’s somehow not for them.

But really science is part of the wonderful tapestry of human culture, intertwined with things like art, music, theater, film and even religion. These elements of our culture help us understand and celebrate our place in the universe, navigate it and be in dialogue with it and each other. Everyone should be able to engage freely in whichever parts of the general culture they choose, from going to a show or humming a tune to talking about a new movie over dinner.

Science, though, gets portrayed as opposite to art, intuition and mystery, as though knowing in detail how that flower works somehow undermines its beauty. As a practicing physicist, I disagree. Science can enhance our appreciation of the world around us. It should be part of our general culture, accessible to all. Those “special talents” required in order to engage with and even contribute to science are present in all of us.

So how do we bring about a change? I think using the tools of the general culture to integrate science with everything else in our lives can be a big part of the solution.

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ECS has a wide array of programs to put your organization’s brand in front of leaders within the electrochemistry and solid state science technology communities.

Through our marketing platforms ECS can connect your organization with your target audience and help to grow your business. Below are the platforms that your company can get involved with through ECS.

Exhibit opportunities
Showcase your products and services at the exhibitions during our biannual meetings. Watch our “Why Exhibit with ECS” video to learn more about our exhibitors.

Meeting sponsorship opportunities
ECS has sponsorship options to highlight your brand at ECS meetings. These include general meeting sponsorship, custom events, and symposium sponsorship. Below you will find the links to our brochures that lists all of our options.

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The following article was originally published in the winter 2017 issue of Interface.

By: Alice Suroviec, Berry College

Corrosion Technology Laboratory
The Corrosion Technology Laboratory at the NASA Kennedy Space Center is a network of capabilities—people, equipment, and facilities—that provide technical innovations and engineering services in all areas of corrosion for NASA and external customers.

The Corrosion Technology Laboratory is part of the Applied Technology Division of NASA, and any project involving corrosion may utilize this fully staffed and equipped corrosion laboratory as a resource. This site provides fundamentals of corrosion and corrosion control information as well as resources for further information. Learn more.

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By: Jalees Rehman, University of Illinois at Chicago

In a recent survey of over 1,500 scientists, more than 70 percent of them reported having been unable to reproduce other scientists’ findings at least once. Roughly half of the surveyed scientists ran into problems trying to reproduce their own results. No wonder people are talking about a “reproducibility crisis” in scientific research – an epidemic of studies that don’t hold up when run a second time.

Reproducibility of findings is a core foundation of science. If scientific results only hold true in some labs but not in others, then how can researchers feel confident about their discoveries? How can society put evidence-based policies into place if the evidence is unreliable?

Recognition of this “crisis” has prompted calls for reform. Researchers are feeling their way, experimenting with different practices meant to help distinguish solid science from irreproducible results. Some people are even starting to reevaluate how choices are made about what research actually gets tackled. Breaking innovative new ground is flashier than revisiting already published research. Does prioritizing novelty naturally lead to this point?

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The following is a roundup of the most watched videos on ECS’s YouTube channel in 2017.

1. Your donation can Free the Science

ECS’s Free the Science initiative aims to move toward a future that embraces open science. Learn how you can help support this long-term vision for transformative change in the traditional models of communicating scholarly research.

The following is a roundup of the most downloaded episodes of the ECS Podcast in 2017.

1. Steven Chu talks climate and energy

Former U.S. Secretary of Energy and Nobel Laureate, Steven Chu, delivered the ECS Lecture at the year’s 232nd ECS Lecture. Before he gave the talk, he sat down with ECS Executive Director Roque Calvo for an episode of the ECS Podcast.

“I think as a scientist, you have to be optimistic because usually what you’re doing is trying to shoot for the moon,” Chu said during the podcast. “My optimism comes from the fact that you’ve got a whole bunch of very smart people who are focused on all of the technical problems in the world, including sustainability, energy, and climate change.”

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Nokia recently announced the top three winners of its fourth annual Bell Labs Prize, which recognizes disruptive technology innovations with the potential to solve the critical challenges humanity faces within the next 10 years.

Click to enlarge.

This year’s competition attracted more than 330 proposals from 35 countries, which were narrowed down to around 20 semifinal applications shortlisted for collaboration with Bell Labs researchers over a two-month period. These refined semifinal proposals were then reviewed by the Bell Labs leadership team and the nine finalists selected, with each finalist having the chance to extend their collaboration with leading researchers at Bell Labs.

The nine finalist applications covered topics ranging from new approaches to machine learning, new materials synthesis, new human sensory technologies, new distributed computing paradigms, new battery technologies and new programmable radio and antenna technologies. The final judging event took place with a group of seven luminaries in the STEM field.

Joint second prize was awarded to ECS member Colm O’Dwyer, Professor of Chemistry at University College in Cork, Ireland, and Chair of the Electronics & Photonics Division of ECS, for his invention of a new class of 3D-printed batteries that could be incorporated into virtually any form factor, enabling new kinds of wearable devices with medical, health, communications and other future applications.

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