in focus

As many of you know, the Canadian Materials Science of Conference, which until 2000 was held at Royal Military College, Kingston, Ontario, has been organized at various university campuses across Canada under the overall stewardship of Met Soc. The last CMSC was held at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario on June 10-11, 2009. Met Soc wants to thank Drs. Keith Pilkey and Mark Daymont of the Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering of Queen's University for making it a great success.

I am very pleased to announce that he next CMSC will be held at Waterloo University on June 8-11, 2010, during which the DKC. McDonald Lecture will be given by Professor Michael F. Ashby of Cambridge University, and the Pre-Conference event will be a workshop on CES Edupack Materials and Process selection software on June 7and 8. Further details will be available shortly on Met Soc website.

The venue for 2011 CMSC has not been selected. Therefore, if any of our members are interested in organizing it, especially in western Canada, please contact Dr Mathieu Brochu at Mathieu.brochu@mcgill.ca

A very important activity a professional society undertakes is to recognize and honour its members for their contributions and services to the profession. Met Soc honoured its members with the 2009 awards at COM 2009 in Sudbury. Congratulations to the winners of these prestigious awards and especially to Laval Met Soc Student Chapter for winning the 2009 Outstanding Chapter of the year. They collaborated with the CIM Quebec branch, held their own speaker activities and carried out outreach activities in their community. I would also like to thank the delegates for their generous contribution to the student travel funding program. Through we were able to fund the travel of Mr. Geoffrey Barden, the Laval Chapter President, to enable him to receive this award in person on behalf of his fellow students.

I would like to take this opportunity to also remind you that the closing date for submitting nominations for 2010 Met Soc Awards is February 1, 2010. Please take a moment from your busy schedule to nominate your colleagues who have made a particularly significant contribution in the field of metals and metallurgy through their work in industry, academia and research institutions in Canada and globally.

In closing, I wish you and your family a prosperous new year!

Mahesh Chaturvedi, FCIM, FASM, PhD, P.ENG
Past President and Editor
University of Manitoba mchat@cc.umanitoba.ca