As those of you who read our newsletter know, the Silicon Valley section is very active. We organize evening seminars, awards, public outreach, student support, and more. I am thrilled to report that this year our section has been selected as a finalist for the ACS Outstanding Section of the Year Chemluminary Award. The size of our section – approximately 2,300 members – puts us in the category of ‘large’ local sections. As background – SVACS is one of 189 local ACS sections across the nation that comprise nearly 160,000 members total. We will be in competition with several other large ACS local sections for the Chemluminary Outstanding Large Local Section Award to be recognized for a high level and quality of section activities. The winners of the various ChemLuminary awards are recognized each year at the Fall annual meeting in a ChemLuminary award ceremony that is open to all meeting attendees. Since the next Fall meeting is in San Francisco, you are all invited to attend, see what the different sections have been doing, and cheer on our section for the Outstanding Section Award. Mark your calendars for Tuesday evening, August 15, in Salon 8-9 at the San Francisco Marriott Marquis (780 Mission Street). The ceremony will feature a keynote address by Mamie Moy, University of Houston, recipient of the 2023 Award for Volunteer Service to the American Chemical Society. The presentations of awards given by 21 committees of the Society for a wide range of activities will follow. The theme of this year’s event is ” Harnessing the Power of Our Volunteers” and celebrates the work of volunteers to improve all people’s lives through the power of chemistry.
With the Fall ACS national meeting being in SF in August, our local section has the distinction of being a local host at the meeting. Join us to help staff the Local Section booth and greet attendees from around the world.
I am also pleased to report that a student from our section, Raenne Li, won second place in the 6-8th grade category of the national 2023 Chemists Celebrate Earth Week (CCEW) Illustrated Poem Contest with the theme, “The Curious Chemistry of Amazing Algae.” Her winning poem and art entry is featured on the CCEW website and on page 3 of this SVACS newsletter. Raenne Li is a 7th grade student at Harker School and her teacher, Raji Swaminathan, is an active supporter of this program and one of our great teachers for Science.
Continuing our celebration of the exemplary students in our section, I am pleased to report that 2 of the students from our section’s area who took the National exam for the Chemistry Olympiad received High Honors which means that they placed in the top 50 students nationwide. An additional 5 students from our region were awarded Honors, by placing in the top 150 students. Next time you are talking with a local high school chemistry teacher, be sure to compliment them on the excellent job they are doing for our community.
On June 21 we will continue our annual tradition of jointly hosting a program with the Golden Gate Polymer Forum. The speaker is Prof. Joseph DiSimone, from Stanford University, whose talk is on “Light, Materials and Interfaces: The Complex Dance That Allows CLIP-based 3D Printing.” DeSimone is well-known for a Bay area company he co-founded with a novel approach to 3D printing, Carbon. Read more about the June 21 webinar in this newsletter.
We look forward to our annual summer picnic on July 8 at Cuesta Park in Mountain View with BBQ, wine- and beer-tasting. I hope you can join us there as a highlight is recognizing winners of the SVACS Ottenberg Award, the SVACS Community College Teacher Scholar Awards, and the honored participation of our 50-, 60- and 70-year ACS members.
Respectively submitted,
Natalie McClure
