Hello Fellow Chemists,
I am writing as Acting Chair while Stephanie Benight is enjoying time with her new baby. Our by-laws dictate that under these circumstances the Chair Elect serves as Acting Chair. So I will be supporting the section until Stephanie’s return.
The section is working on a series of monthly “dinner” meeting seminars. However, due to the continuing COVID pandemic, these meetings will involve dinner at the place of your choosing and a seminar presented over Zoom. While it is disappointing that we can’t meet to exchange ideas and have the social interactions that we had pre-COVID, the Zoom seminars have been popular and actually usually draw a larger attendance than we got in person. They allow both speakers and attendees to participate across the country. It is nice to skip the traffic hassles! Please join us at the virtual Mosher Award ceremony to be held on March 3 and check the Upcoming Events column in this newsletter for other interesting seminars.
The ACS Spring National meeting will be held March 20-24 in San Diego. The theme for the meeting is “Bonding Through Chemistry”. The Opening Session on Sunday March 20 will focus on how the theory of chemical bonding can take on a fresh ‘spin’ and impact the rapidly rising field of quantum information science (QIS) with presentations by Professor Alexandrova (UCLA), Professor Freedman (MIT), and Professor McQueen (Johns Hopkins). There are many ways to participate in this meeting: in person, with COVID safety protocols; at hybrid sessions with both in-person and virtual presentations; or from a distance by accessing on-demand live presentations. The on-demand presentations will be available 24 hours after the live presentations and remain available until April 8 for all registrants. The ACS National governance meetings will be held virtually. San Diego is a great venue for the meetings—good weather, nice convention center, lots to do when you aren’t at the meeting. It should be a great meeting if you are able to attend whether in person or over the internet. Maybe I’ll see you there.
