Letter From the President
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What Next? Recently, the Materials Research Society celebrated its 20th birthday. In these 20-plus years, we have grown to be a society of over 12,000 members. We hold what are arguably the two premier meetings for the international materials community. We have an active publishing enterprise, including an outstanding journal for members (MRS Bulletin), a refereed journal (Journal of Materials Research), and a series of almost 500 bound symposium proceedings. We are active in representing the materials research community in public and government affairs. We are developing initiatives in electronic communications and publishing, and in career and employment services. Recently, we concluded that renting space for our headquarters activities was too limiting, and not financially prudent. We have therefore decided to construct a new headquarters building which will serve as the fulcrum for our society operations and an important new focal point for member activities. materials applications will be developed in the biomedical field. New structural, So what? In my mind, the important optical, and electronic applications for question is not where we have come polymers will be explored. New materials from, or even where we are, but where do and processes will enable the microelecwe want to go? tronics and optoelectronics industries to The next century has crept up upon us continue their dazzling tradition of enorfast. I remember as a child trying to calcumous progress and innovation. It is quite late whether I could expect to live to the plausible that in the future historians will year 2000. Now I have credit cards, car refer to this time as the "Materials Age." payments, and even research grants which expire in the next millennium. The So how does MRS respond to these future is upon us, and I think there is enormous opportunities in order to help every reason to believe that we are enterdefine and lead this Materials Age? We ing a golden age for materials research. In have evolved into a stable, secure, and the coming decades, we are going to see effective entity. But I believe that it is critirevolutionary materials concepts become cal not to stand still and ossify. We need commonplace. The planes we fly will be to develop a vision for what we want made of carbon composite materials as MRS to become in the next decade and well as new metal alloys. Entirely new beyond, and then start the necessary steps
to implement that vision. A major goal of my year as president will be to guide the process to define this vision and set up the necessary mechanisms to implement it. I urge you all to give your input into this process. The kinds of questions we need to grapple with are the following: Do we want the Society to grow in membership—to double, triple, or even quintuple in size? Should we substantially expand the number of technical meetings the Society holds? Do we want to create cooperative programs with industry for our members, and should we develop professional qualifications such as are common in engineering fields? Sho
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