Professor Jason Keleher

Jason Keleher and his students share their experience, strength, and hope 

The pandemic sent shockwaves through the academic community. Some institutions are weathering the storm better than others. At Lewis University (LU), Professor Jason Keleher and his students, Carolyn Graverson, Abigail “Abby” Linhart, and Katie Wortman-Otto, are optimistic. In our series, The ECS Community Adapts and Advances, they share their COVID-19 experiences and hopes for the future.

Motivation matters

Jason Keleher, Associate Professor and Chair of the LU Chemistry Department, describes what motivates him to meet the daunting changes confronting faculty. “I keep going because of my great group of students, colleagues, and collaborators. They inspire me every day to work at what is most interesting to the community in terms of solutions to globally pressing problems—whether it’s COVID-19, alternative energy, or waste treatment. Even if our only communication is digital, I appreciate that my team is committed to learning and knowledge in order to become accomplished scientists. I get a chance to be part of that journey.” (more…)

The Electrochemical Society honors 2019 Nobel Chemistry Prize laureates, John B. Goodenough, M. Stanley Whittingham, and Akira Yoshino, by the launch of a new collection highlighting their scientific contributions published by ECS. In addition, ECS recognizes their contributions in the winter 2019 issue of Interface, now available online.

Goodenough, Whittingham, and Yoshino have been deeply involved with The Electrochemical Society—as members, authors, editors, fellows, meeting participants and organizers, awardees, and more. Their publications with ECS, to varying degrees, trace the history of the development of the Lithium-ion battery, the revolutionary invention for which they shared the 2019 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. (more…)

In “Approaches for the Electrochemical Interrogation of DNA-Based Sensors: A Critical Review,” Miguel Aller Pellitero, Alexander Shaver, and Netzahualcóyotl (Netz) Arroyo-Currás reviewed the specific advantages of the electroanalytical methods most commonly used for the interrogation of DNA-based sensors.

Arroyo-Currás, ECS member and associate editor, Journal of the Electrochemical Society sensors technical area, provided more background information to the article in response to questions from the ECS Blog.

What are DNA-based electrochemical sensors?

These are measurement platforms that employ any form of DNA as the molecular recognition element. We must remember that electrochemistry is extremely sensitive (for example, there is significant work regarding stochastic detection of single entities like molecules, nanoparticles and whole cells and viruses) but lacks specificity; thus, relying on the molecular binding properties of DNA allows us to selectively detect molecules even in complex biological environments. (more…)

Deadline: March 1, 2020

The ECS Sensor Division Outstanding Achievement Award was established in 1989 to recognize outstanding achievement in research and/or technical contributions to the field of sensors and to encourage work excellence in the field. The award consists of a framed certificate and a $1,000 prize. The next award winner is recognized at the PRiME 2020, in Honolulu, HI, from October 4-9, 2020.

Joseph Wang received the award in 2018. He is Distinguished Professor, SAIC Endowed Chair and Chair in the Department of Nanoengineering at University of California, San Diego; and director of the UCSD Center of Wearable Sensors. His award talk, “Electrochemical Sensors: From Beakers to the Skin and the Mouth,” was presented at the 2018 PRiME meeting in Hawaii.

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Nominations Deadline: March 15

The Electrochemical Society (ECS) Battery Division is accepting nominations for four awards: the Battery Division Research Award, Technology Award, Postdoctoral Associate Research Award, and Student Research Award. The award winners are recognized at PRiME 2020 in Honolulu, Hawaii, from October 4-9, 2020.

Battery Division Research Award: established in 1958 to encourage excellence in battery and fuel cell research, and to encourage publication in ECS journals. The winner receives a framed certificate; a $2,000 prize; and ECS Battery Division membership for as long as the recipient maintains Society membership.

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6th ECS Yamagata University Student Chapter Symposium

The ECS Yamagata University Student Chapter in Japan has been very active, organizing symposia on November 20 and 17 December, 2019.

6th ECS Yamagata University Student Chapter Symposium

The 6th ECS Yamagata University (YU) Student Chapter Symposium featured Dr. Philipp Stadler, Johannes Kepler University (JKU) Linz, Austria. His lecture, “Conductive Biopolymers as Sustainable Electrocatalysts,” covered the research background to the serious problems caused by global climate change and the scarcity of resources for developing sustainable technology. He presented recent progress on metal-free organic conductive polymer catalysts for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and CO₂ reduction reaction (CO₂RR). A lively discussion followed as the talk was directly related to YU students’ research. (more…)

When ECS and IOP Publishing complete their partnership on January 2, 2020, with the launch of the ECS Digital Library on IOPscience, two great institutions will bring over 200 years of experience in excellent scientific publishing to advancing theory and practice at the forefront of electrochemical and solid state science and technology, and allied subjects.

Publications

IOP Publishing—the publishing company of the Institute of Physics—partners with ECS in publishing the Journal of the Electrochemical Society (JES) and the ECS Journal of Solid State Science and Technology, and hosting ECS Transactions, ECS Meeting Abstracts, and Interface, as well as hosting ECS’s retired publications archives—ECS Electrochemistry Letters, ECS Solid State Letters, Electrochemical and Solid State Letters, and ECS Proceedings Volumes. (more…)

Accepting Submissions: December 26, 2019 – March 25, 2020

Submit your manuscripts to the ECS Journal of Solid State Science and Technology Focus Issue on Gallium Oxide Based Materials and Devices II.

About the focus issue

This issue of the ECS Journal of Solid State Science and Technology is the second in a series that aims to cover the growth, characterization, processing and device applications of Ga2O3. GaN and SiC based wide bandgap device technologies have matured and become limited by fundamental material properties. A new class of oxide wide band gap materials are emerging (gallium oxide and aluminum gallium oxide) that offer potentially improved figure of merit over GaN and SiC for power devices. The availability of Ga2O3 single crystals and epitaxial films with large area and excellent quality has led to renewed interest in this ultra-wide bandgap semiconductor for solar-blind photodetectors, sensors, and power electronics. (more…)