Materials scientists find themselves spending a great deal of time in airports and airplanes traveling to many countries to meet their peers in order to learn, share, and collaborate for the purpose of advancing the field of materials science. Materials research is truly a global enterprise, spanning political boundaries, and benefiting from access to high-level research wherever it may originate.

Orlando Auciello

2013 MRS President

From its inception, the Materials Research Society has aspired to serve all materials researchers, regardless of discipline, geography, or background. The First International Conference on Characterization of Materials in 1966 was the predecessor to today’s MRS Spring and Fall Meetings (and today’s MRS), convening a global community to advance interdisciplinary materials research. In 1973, a few individuals with great vision created a new society to serve professionals working in the field of materials research. Since then, our Society has thrived because of the simple core values of promoting technical excellence, being visionary and dynamic, catalyzing interdisciplinary collaborations and, above all, being broadly inclusive and egalitarian. One of MRS’s current Strategic Objectives is to “provide and enable forums for the worldwide exchange of technical information related to leading edge, interdisciplinary materials research.”

Approximately 45% of MRS members, more than 40% of MRS meeting attendees, more than 50% of authors in MRS publications, and more than 50% of MRS website visitors hail from outside the United States. This international character of the Society is also reflected in MRS Leadership. The MRS Board of Directors consists of individuals with diverse backgrounds and perspectives reflecting many parts of the globe, including Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and North and South America. The renewal of the President every year and the Board every three years, based on election by members, promotes participation from all over the world, bringing new ideas and expertise to advance our vibrant Society. MRS views all of its members equally and endeavors to serve all of them well, regardless of where they live and work. For example, last year, we began “virtual” capture of activities at MRS Meetings in order to reach researchers who may not be able to travel to meetings, and we plan to provide online interactive networking opportunities. As part of this effort, the University Chapter program has been expanded worldwide in response to requests from universities all over the world.

MRS recognizes that there are many organizations that are part of the fabric of the global materials community. Collaborations are critical to advance our mission and the field of materials research. For example, we work with other scientific and technological societies to advocate for sustained funding for science and for bringing the excitement of materials science to the public in general. As part of our outreach effort to the public, the Strange Matter museum exhibition, which currently is a tri-lingual (English, French, and Spanish) exhibit, has toured extensively in many locations, including the United States, Mexico, Canada, and Puerto Rico. The next generation of this exhibition is planned to travel outside North America, and it is anticipated that interactions with international materials-focused organizations will pave the way to move this project forward. Worldwide collaborations are also important to engage and support the growing materials research community. For this reason, MRS hosted an Open Forum on Activities and Opportunities in Africa at the 2012 MRS Fall Meeting to catalyze dialogue between organizations supporting materials science in Africa, and has endorsed and supported recent Africa MRS conferences. The Sociedad Mexicana de Materiales (SMM) and MRS currently offer joint symposia at SMM’s annual International Materials Research Congress, and we plan to continue this relationship as well as discuss additional activities. MRS joined with the Japan Society for Applied Physics (JSAP) to provide joint symposia at the 2012 MRS Spring Meeting and for the 2013 JSAP Fall Meeting. We continue to enjoy our longstanding collaborations with European MRS (E-MRS), including the third installment of our bilateral energy conference in 2014. MRS is working with organizations in many countries to develop joint recognition of university chapters, as previously mentioned, and we continue to highlight news from international conferences in The Meeting Scene and in MRS Bulletin, including recent coverage of conferences hosted by Sociedade Brasileira de Pesquisa em Materiais (SBPMat) and MRS Singapore.

In all of these activities, MRS aspires to be a good partner to advance materials research globally. MRS has always welcomed, and continues to welcome healthy, productive relationships with organizations around the world. As with all of our activities, the MRS Board, which provides the governance structure of our Society, continues to evaluate which programs and collaborations help us to best serve the materials community. We value our existing collaborations and we hope to build upon them. We welcome your ideas on how to better engage the worldwide materials (or scientific) community, creating new programs and forging new interactions with like-minded organizations to advance materials science. I encourage you to contact us at feedback@mrs.org.

By engaging in these international interactions, we will keep advancing the MRS Mission, which is “advancing materials to improve the quality of life.”