ECS celebrates Krishnan (Raj) Rajeshwar, a professor, researcher, former Interface editor, and former ECS president, by honoring him, on the occasion of his 70th birthday, with a Journal of The Electrochemical Society focus issue on semiconductor electrochemistry and photoelectrochemistry.

Learn more.

Topics of interest include but are not limited to fundamental studies on electrochemistry, photoelectrochemistry, and semiconductor devices.

Raj has spent a great deal of his career focusing in on the understanding and application of semiconductor electrochemistry and photoelectrochemistry himself. His research also includes work in solar energy conversion, environmental chemistry, and more. It’s evident that Raj is passionate about his life’s work.

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Your all-inclusive reservation includes unlimited meals, drinks, taxes and gratuities.

Have you made your plans yet to join us at the upcoming AiMES 2018 meeting in Cancun from September 30–October 4?

Of course, the technical program is one of the most comprehensive in the fields of electrochemistry and solid state science, but you will also have many different options for how to enjoy your free time!

The meeting will be held at the beautiful Moon Palace Resort, a gigantic luxury resort located along Cancun’s Mayan Riviera and set amidst 55-acres of lush tropical foliage. Just minutes from the Cancun International Airport, it features a full-service spa, a 27-hole golf course designed by Jack Nicklaus, a larger-than-life pool, and numerous restaurants and dining options, all making for an unforgettable experience.

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Jan Talbot (center) with Wendy Coulson (left) and Nicole Pacheco (right), Talbot’s graduate students.

One of the pioneers for women in engineering, Jan Talbot retired from the University of California San Diego on July 1, 2018.

Talbot was one of two women in her chemical engineering class at Penn State University. In 1970, when she started her program, there were only seven women and nearly 3,000 men in engineering.

According to the National Science Foundation, in 1973, 576 women in the U.S. graduated with a bachelor’s degree in engineering. Two years later, Talbot was one of the 372 women that earned a master’s.

After completing her degrees at Penn State, she became one of two women in her class to graduate from the University of Minnesota in 1986 with a doctorate in engineering and one of 225 women to earn that degree in the whole country.

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What was once known as the High Temperature Materials (HTM) Division of The Electrochemical Society has undergone a name change. It will now be known as the High-Temperature Energy, Materials, & Processes Division (H-TEMP). The ECS Board of Directors recently approved this name change at the 233rd ECS Meeting, effective immediately.  H-TEMP includes topical interest areas such as fuel cells, electrolyzers, and energy conversion.

For several years, there has been an ongoing debate within the HTM Division about whether the name adequately represents the topical research areas, materials, and division activities such as organizing long running successful symposia, which are primarily centered around high temperature electrochemical energy conversion and storage science and technology that HTM has been heavily engaged in for the past several decades.

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An online platform that had once offered a voice to scientists – to join in on debates and discussions of other scientists and inquisitive minds – may now be a thing of the past. Social news website Reddit hosts r/science, one of the world’s largest online science communities, which ran a popular Ask Me Anything Q&A (AMA) series that picked the brains of academics about topics like climate change, physics, and astronomy has come to an end. This was all due to a change in Reddit’s algorithm, changing how posts were ranked and making it nearly impossible to compete with the charm of cute animal GIF’s in the competition of upvotes.

The demise of the Ask Me Anything Q&A series is considered a major setback for the science community. The forum grew to nearly 19 million users, now left with no other platform that offers quite the same reach, accessibility, and engagement.

“With flat-earthers, anti-vaxxers, climate change deniers, and the rest of the anti-science brigade making their views heard in almost every corner of the internet, it’s a difficult time for those who value insightful discussion of peer-reviewed science online,” says Alastair McCloskey, a digital content coordinator in the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Sheffield. Read his full article here.

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ECS Transactions 85(13) “Selected Proceedings from the 233rd ECS Meeting: Seattle, WA – Spring 2018,” has just been published.

Browse the table of contents in the ECS Digital Library, or purchase the full issue (available for instant download) from the ECS Online Store.

This issue contains a total of 149 papers from the following Seattle symposia:

A01 – Battery and Energy Technology Joint General Session

A02 – Large-Scale Energy Storage 9

A03 – Li-ion Batteries and Beyond

A04 – Materials Recycling for Energy Conversion and Storage

B01 – Carbon Nanostructures for Energy Conversion and Storage

B02 – Carbon Nanostructures in Medicine and Biology

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By: Yue Kuo, ECS President

Today I am writing this message as someone who has worked with Roque over the past 23 years and has benefited from Roque’s leadership and dedication to the Society.

As president of ECS, I want to celebrate and recognize Roque’s legacy. I am sure as a past ECS board member, you have appreciated all of Roque’s contributions. If you were able to attend the presidential reception in Seattle, thank you for showing your support.

Because of this deep and long relationship, I am respectfully requesting that you consider making a gift to the Roque Calvo Next Generation Fund.

The Roque Calvo Next Generation Scholarship Fund was created by the ECS Board of Directors to honor the 37 years that Roque served the Society. As we celebrate Roque’s legacy, I think back to all that he has contributed to the development of our student programing, including starting the student chapters and the first student poster session. Under his leadership, there are now 70 student chapters worldwide and at the last ECS meeting there were 288 student posters. Today, ECS offers 13 student awards and invests $300,000 per year in student grant and education programs.

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Photo Credit: www.HydroQuebec.com

Hydro-Québec (an ECS institutional member) and the U.S. Army Research Laboratory have announced a breakthrough in the lithium-ion battery materials field, publishing their research results in the Journal of Power Sources. Using a cathode made with new high voltage safe materials, the researchers have achieved a world first: building a 1.2 Ah lithium-ion cell with a voltage of 5 V.

“With the high voltage of this new cell, we can reach a very high energy density,” says Karim Zaghib, General Director of the Center of Excellence in Transportation Electrification and Energy Storage. “This highly desirable property can improve batteries used in a wide range of applications.” Army Research Laboratory scientists Jan Allen and Richard Jow, also inventors of this high voltage cathode material, believe that the high cell voltage can, in addition to enabling high energy density, improve the design of devices.

Lithium-ion batteries are widely used to power many electronic devices, including smartphones, medical devices and electric vehicles. Their high energy density, excellent durability and lightness make them a popular choice for energy storage. In response to the growing demand for their use in a wide range of products, there are many teams working to improve their storage capacity. In particular, there is great interest in developing new compounds that could increase energy storage capacity, stability and lifespan. That is why the innovation announced today has such a strong commercial potential.

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Dan Schwartz, Boeing-Sutter Professor and director of the Clean Energy Institute at the University of Washington

Daniel Schwartz, a University of Washington professor of chemical engineering and director of the Clean Energy Institute, received the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering Mentoring from the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and the National Science Foundation this week. The OSTP and NSF recognized Schwartz for his commitment to interdisciplinary graduate education – helping students apply their research to societal and market needs – along with his dedication to recruiting and supporting Native American STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) scholars at the UW.

“I’m proud to join this cadre of dedicated educators and mentors helping students become leading scientists and engineers,” said Schwartz. “Focusing on clean energy science, engineering and resource management at UW has brought top students from across the country to Seattle, where they have partnered with Northwest tribes and businesses to ensure the future of energy is being created here.”

Starting in 2007, Schwartz launched an NSF-funded interdisciplinary graduate training program that used tribal clean energy research partnerships to attract top Native American students to graduate degree programs in UW’s College of the Environment and College of Engineering. The program was continued and expanded in partnership with Washington State University and Salish Kootenai College with U.S. Department of Agriculture funding, eventually including an undergraduate summer research experience program. Since the program launched, 26 students have completed doctoral degrees, with four awarded to Native Americans and four to other underrepresented minorities. Six masters have also been awarded – including two to Native Americans – and a tribal student-led startup company was founded. A signature achievement was the 2016 Alaska Airlines flight from Seattle to Washington, D.C. on fuel partially made from tribal forest thinnings.

Listen to the ECS Podcast to learn more about Dan Schwatz and open science.

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