Getting Involved in MRS
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Letter from the President
Getting Involved in MRS Among the many pleasures of being the President of the Materials Research Society are all the people I get to meet. Many of them already work in volunteer roles for the Society, and a significant number of others have asked me how they might get involved. MRS is a member-run and member-driven society and there is always a need for members to volunteer to help run it; so here is a quick tutorial in the opportunities that MRS offers. Broadly speaking, there are three kinds of volunteer involvement. First, and most prominent, member volunteers organize the technical programs of our meetings and the technical content of MRS Bulletin. Perhaps less prominent, but equally important, members serve on a number of standing committees that run the Society. Finally, members may be elected to the Society’s governing board (the Council) or as an officer of the organization. Most begin their involvement by coorganizing a symposium at a Spring or Fall meeting. A typical symposium has three or four organizers, who are selected by the Meeting Chairs. (The Meeting Chairs are, themselves, selected by the MRS Vice President, mostly from the ranks of experienced symposium organizers.) Although symposium topics might be repeated on various cycles, we do not allow the same group of symposium organizers to repeat the role, so we have a constant need for new symposium organizers. To be a symposium organizer, you need to plan to work on a meeting at least a year-and-a-half in the future. You can identify the appropriate Meeting Chairs on the MRS Web site (www.mrs.org), and then start networking. If you want to organize a symposium in an ongoing series, or on a subject related to a recent symposium, you should discuss your desire with the previous group of symposium organizers to see if they know of anyone else also planning to propose this project. If you want to organize a symposium in a new area, you may need to suggest your own group of symposium organizers—bearing in mind that the Meeting Chairs will have the last say on whether the symposium is included in their meeting, and who organizes it. As a general rule, to be a symposium organizer, you will need to be well-connected in the subject on which you want to work, but you do not necessarily need to have a high level of seniority. It helps to be well organized, too. The ideal group of symposium organizers is balanced with respect to the
MRS BULLETIN/JUNE 2002
“MRS is a member-run and member-driven society.”
seniority of its members; whether they work in a university, national laboratory, or industry; whether they work within or outside the United States; and whether they are male or female. They also need to cover as many subfields as possible within their symposium topic. Most importantly, though, you need to be in touch with the Meeting Chairs about 18 months before the meeting that you want to help organize. Topical focus issues of MRS Bulletin, and the corresponding guest editors, are selected in a very similar manner to the symp
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