Silicon Valley ACS (SVACS)
The Silicon Valley Section of the American Chemical Society serves 2,300+ ACS members. We are one of 189 local sections across the nation that serve the American Chemical Society’s nearly 160,000 members.
Our section serves the five counties of San Mateo, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, San Benito, and Monterey. Our nearest neighbor local section is the California Section, headquartered in San Leandro.
In May 1955, we formed and incorporated as the Santa Clara Valley ACS Section. We changed our name to the Silicon Valley ACS Section in August 2017.
Our mission is to engage the chemistry community by providing professional development, educational opportunities, networking, and recognition. We also strive to share innovative, exciting, and fun science with our diverse broader community through education and outreach.
We organize, host, and partner in offering many programs to our member chemists and to the greater community. In addition to monthly events and newsletters, we participate in National Chemistry Week, the Bay Area Science Festival, the High School Chemistry Olympiad, and the Synopsys Science Fair. We present several awards throughout the year, including: the Mosher Award, the Radding Award, the Ottenberg Award, and a first-in-the-nation Teacher-Scholar Award for community college science faculty.
We are always looking to broaden the range of backgrounds and interests in our organizing and leadership groups. To volunteer with us and join a community of dedicated science fans, contact us today!
ACS governance
The American Chemical Society is governed by elected national officers, a 16-member board of directors, and a nearly 500-member national ACS Council. Other volunteers hold office and guide the Society’s 189 local sections, established in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and abroad. Volunteers also work in the 32 divisions of the ACS that serve the principal areas of chemical sciences and technology and associated fields. The Society’s national offices in Washington, DC employ about 500 people, and the Columbus, Ohio office, which produces Chemical Abstracts and provides related services, employs a separate staff of 1,400 people. For more information, see the American Chemical Society’s Governance page.
The size of a local section determines how many Councilors represent it in the national ACS Council. SVACS has seven Councilors and seven Alternate Councilors. Every local section has at least one Councilor. Divisions also have Councilors distributed so that Division Councilors constitute one-fourth of the ACS Council.