ACA Materials Special Interest Group 2009 Annual report July 22, 2009

At the 2008 Materials SIG business meeting in Salt Lake City, we discussed candidates for SIG Chair-Elect for the Fall 2008 election process. Some confusion lead to Pamela Whitfield being on the official ballot as opposed to the candidates discussed. The preferred candidate chosen at the SIG meeting was no longer available so according to the regulations the executive approached Angus Wilkinson to serve as chair-elect for 2009. He graciously accepted and we thank him for taking on this responsibility.

Our 2009 Executive Committee of three officers consisting of:

Past Chair (2007) -- Branton Campbell (Brigham Young University)

Current Chair (2008) -- Pamela Whitfield (National Research Council of Canada)

Chair Elect (2009) -- Angus Wilkinson (Georgia Tech)

At the 2008 Knoxville meeting, the Materials SIG co-sponsored ten half-day sessions (up from five in 2007), in addition to a full-day workshop and a full-day Transactions symposium.

TR.01 Diffuse Scattering -- Monday AM/PM (with Powder/Neutron/Fiber/Service/Small-Angle)

13.01 Incommensurate and Modulated Structures (with Small Molecules) -- Sunday AM

13.02 Solid State Transformations (with Powder/Service/Small-Mol) -- Sunday PM

13.04 Diffraction Studies of Correlated Electron Systems (with Neutron) -- Monday AM

13.06 Molecular Magnets (with Neutron) -- Monday PM

13.08 Catalysis Studies using SAXS and High-Energy Scattering PDF (with SAS) -- Tuesday AM

13.10 Supramolecular Chemistry: from Assembly to Function (with Small-Mol) -- Tues AM/PM, Wed PM

13.13 Materials for Energy Applications (with Neutron/Powder) -- Thursday AM

13.15 Diffuse Scattering Studies of Local Structure in the Solid State (with Powder) -- Thursday PM

WK.01 Magnetic Structure Analysis by Neutron Diffraction (with Neutron/Powder) -- Saturday AM/PM

At the planning meeting in Knoxville, Pamela Whitfield and Branton Campbell represented the Materials SIG in preparing for the 2009 meeting in Toronto.

Six half-day sessions and a full-day transactions symposium co-sponsored by Materials were scheduled for the 2009 meeting.

6.01 Supramolecular Chemistry -- Sunday PM (with Small-Mol)

6.02 Shape-Memory Materials -- Sunday AM (with Neutron)

6.04 Diffraction Studies and Mechanical Properties of Engineering Materials -- Monday AM (with Neutron/Powder/Synchrotron)

6.07 Superconducting Materials -- Tuesday AM (with Neutron)

6.15 Energy-Related Materials -- Wednesday AM (with Powder)

6.18 Ferroic and Multiferroic Materials -- Thursday PM (with Neutron)

TR.01 Phase Transitions (with Service/Powder/Small-Mol/General Interest/SAS) -- Monday AM/PM

Due to a small number of abstract submissions to the shape-memory materials session and oversubscription to Energy Related Materials (6.15), the topic of 6.02 was changed to provide a second Energy Related Materials session scheduled for the same time.

We wish to thank the cooperating SIGs who co-sponsored sessions with Materials, the individuals who organized and chaired these sessions. Once again the interactions between the Materials, Powder and Neutron SIGS have been very productive. Given the overlap in both research and people the Materials SIG would like the practice of holding a joint Materials/Powder/Neutron SIG meeting to continue. The close interactions between these SIGS leads to a variety of joint sessions to better serve the membership.

An effort was made during the year to collate the SIG membership list into an email distribution list to better communicate with the membership of the Materials SIG. The latest available list was years out of date so inevitably a large number of addresses were either no longer valid or the member had retired. An email circular was sent to the SIG membership requesting feedback for the executive and any relevant activities we should know about. Unfortunately, positive feedback was almost non-existent, the most common reply being requests to be removed from the list. It is not anticipated that this exercise will be repeated any time soon but we do now have a list of emails for a large number of active SIG members.

Pamela Whitfield

Materials SIG Chair, 2009

National Research Council Canada,

Ottawa, CANADA