The MRS Bulletin 2018 Volume Organizers, appointed by MRS President-Elect Susan Trolier-McKinstry, will guide the development of theme topics for the 2018 volume year. They are Karsten Albe (Technische Universität Darmstadt, Germany), Hiroshi Funakubo (Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan), Michael Hickner (The Pennsylvania State University, USA), and Beth Stadler (University of Minnesota, USA).

Karsten Albe is a professor of materials science and Head of the Materials Modeling Division at Technische Universität Darmstadt (TU Darmstadt), Germany. He received his diploma in physics from Universität Ulm and obtained his doctorate from Technische Universität Dresden. He was a postdoctoral fellow at the Frederick Seitz Materials Research Laboratory and the Center for Simulation of Advanced Rockets at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He joined TU Darmstadt as a junior faculty member and has been a full professor since 2007. His research focuses on modeling the electronic structure, thermodynamics, and kinetics of defects in functional oxides by quantum mechanical methods. Other activities include the simulation of mechanical properties of nano-structured metals by large-scale computer simulations. Albe has been a spokesperson of the Collaborative Research Center 595: “Electrical Fatiguein Functional Materials,” and was elected as a member of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft panel for materials science and engineering. He is the author of more than 120 publications and has served as a co-chairperson of the Materials Science and Engineering Congress in 2012 and 2014.

Hiroshi Funakubo is a professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the School of Materials and Chemical Technology at the Tokyo Institute of Technology. In 1989, he became an assistant professor in the faculty of engineering at the Tokyo Institute of Technology. He received a PhD degree from the Tokyo Institute of Technology in 1994. He was appointed associate professor in 1997, followed by full professor in 2012 of the Interdisciplinary Graduate School of Science and Engineering, Tokyo Institute of Technology. Funakubo’s research is focused on preparation and properties of dielectric, ferroelectric, and piezoelectric films, as well as film solid-oxide fuel cells and thermoelectric materials development. He has been involved in the organization of several international ferroelectric conferences and organized a MRS symposium on ferroelectric thin films at the 2003 MRS Fall Meeting.

Michael Hickner is an associate professor and the Corning Faculty Fellow in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at The Pennsylvania State University (Penn State). Before joining Penn State in 2007, he was a staff member at Sandia National Laboratories. His research group focuses on the synthesis and properties of ion-containing polymers, measurement of water–polymer interactions using spectroscopic techniques, and the application of polymeric materials in energy and water treatment technologies. Hickner’s work has been recognized by Young Investigator Awards from the Office of Naval Research and the Army Research Office, a 3M Non-Tenured Faculty Grant, the Rustum and Della Roy Innovation in Materials Research Award, and a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers from President Obama. He is on the Editorial Board of the journals Macromolecules and ACS Macro Letters and has co-authored eight patents and more than 150 publications.

Beth Stadler is a professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and a graduate faculty of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science at the University of Minnesota (UMN). She obtained her PhD degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1994. Her re-search won the National Science Foundation CAREER Award and the McKnight Presidential Fellowship. She was a 2015 IEEE Magnetics Society Distinguished Lecturer, giving 55 talks worldwide; and taught at the IEEE Magnetic Summer School in Chennai, India (2012) and Assis, Italy (2013). Stadler’s photonics research is focused on integration of magneto-optical garnets with semiconductors and other convenient platforms. In magnetics, she works primarily with magnetic nanowires for nonvolatile memory, hard drives, and bio-barcodes. She served on the MRS Board of Directors, as Secretary of MRS, on the Program Development Subcommittee of MRS, and co-chaired six MRS Symposia and the 2004 MRS Fall Meeting.

Requests for instructions on submitting proposals for MRS Bulletin theme topics can be emailed to bulletin@mrs.org.