Letter from the President
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What's Up? Last Spring, the Materials Research Society conducted two surveys, one by mail and one at the MRS Spring Meeting. The surveys asked different questions in different ways, and had different but overlapping demographics, so the results are subject to complex interpretations.1 However, some general conclusions are clear and can serve as important input to guide the committees, councillors, officers, and staff of the Society as they set the stage for MRS's continued evolution into both new roles and to improved versions of traditional activities. I'd like to share some of the survey results since they bring out important issues for all MRS members. First, unsurprisingly, most of us became MRS members, and continue to be MRS members, because of the meetings. MRS members come from a variety of disciplines (as many trained in physics as in materials science, with many trained in other science and engineering fields), and work in a variety of environments (50% university, 25% industry, and 20% government and national laboratories). However, despite these diverse backgrounds, we share the view that MRS meetings provide the best means of presenting and learning about results from crossdisciplinary research on materials. The meetings also serve important networking and educational functions, the latter not only through short courses (now evolved into tutorials), but also through the symposia themselves, which allow us to quickly and efficiently come up to speed on unfamiliar or new research activities. The meetings, and therefore the Society, are at a crossroad. We now have two large successful meetings that "fill" their east and west coast sites. Our meetings have always had the luxury of being in growth mode. New exciting topics could be added without pressure to remove or de-emphasize existing topics. Some traditional topics have evolved into fundamentally new topics, and some have faded away over time, but this process has never been forced. MRS has been very open and democratic in this sense. However, without changing sites to allow the Fall and Spring meetings to grow further, or without starting a third meeting, the Society will have to change the way it develops programs. This is an
given to the importance of a role for MRS in representing a strong and unified voice on U.S. government research policy. We need to clearly define what we want to do and what we can do to effectively assist U.S. government in making informed decisions on actions which affect materials research. The DC office has helped the Society develop a voice in Washington, but we need to think carefully about how to use it. You can learn more about the Society's public affairs activities on the homepage. Have a look and tell us what you think. In terms of new activities, the surveys showed the highest ratings by far for the future expansion of electronic services. We've made great progress in this area, with the World Wide Web site providing "Tins is an exciting time to a wide range of information about meetings, publications, and other ac
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