in focus

Dear Fellow Members and Friends of MetSoc:

  George Demopoulos,   Past President and Founding Editor
  Nalini Singh (McGill Student Chapter)
 

As I write this in focus piece (my last one!) I reflect back on the 5 years I spent on the Executive of Metsoc and the appreciation I developed for all constituencies of our Society and the challenges that lie ahead for us. Metsoc is a vibrant internationally recognized CIM-constituent Society with current membership of over 1700 of whom 300 are students. Its diverse membership is engaged in the whole train of mineral, metallurgical and materials processing industrial and R&D activities. Our Conferences of Metallurgists feature symposia that reflect this broad membership base. The upcoming COM meeting in Winnipeg testifies to this reality. Inevitably each of us is attracted to the symposium/activity that is closer to his/her professional specialization, such as Hydrometallurgy (like me!), Light Metals, Iron & Steel, Non-Ferrous Pyrometallurgy, Materials Science, Aerospace Materials etc. From time to time I hear complaints (especially from my fellow academic colleagues) about the relevance of Metsoc in their work or weaknesses in one or other area. Metsoc is a member-governed Society relying on volunteers to fulfill its mission. It is up to us to ensure strong programming in certain technical area by our active participation and involvement. This can be done via joining the Section that best meets your interests. Please refer to our website (www.metsoc.org) under "About MetSoc/Board of Directors" for contact and other information. The same can be said for our flagship Journal publication-the Canadian Metallurgical Quarterly (www.cmq-online.ca) that deserves our support and contributions as a showcase of our strong Canadian research community.

Metsoc has been fortunate over the years to receive strong support from our industry that made it one of the most internationally respected Societies serving the metallurgical engineering profession. As our profession evolves into materials engineering it is imperative that we maintain an inclusive and forward-looking vision. We have to avoid a schism between our industrially strong extraction and processing sectors and the shift towards "advanced materials"-focused university programs. In this regard Metsoc is proud to have under its wings CMSC (the Canadian Materials Science Conference) hosted every June by a different University; the next one is in Edmonton (http://www.ualberta.ca/CMENG/CMSC/registration.html). For sure there is more all of us can do to bring the two constituencies closer!

I would like to close by making particular reference to the student members of Metsoc-the future of our Society and our profession! Metsoc has an active student chapter program offering several benefits to our student-members, such as support for field trips, recognition in the form of scholarships and awards and last but not least opportunities for networking with fellow students and engineers from industry at our meetings and conferences. Two examples of recent student-led activities that received Metsoc's support are featured in this newsletter-visit the STUDENTS pages for more information. I want to commend Michael Fitzpatrick of McMaster U. and Nalini Singh (seen with me in the photo) of McGill U. for their leadership in organizing the two respective activities. Finally I would like to report that the Board of Directors recognized at its last meeting that Metsoc can do more to strengthen its student-member program so it moved to set up a Task Force headed by our President, Joel Kapusta. Stay tuned for some exciting developments. The future looks bright indeed!

George Demopoulos
Immediate Past President and Founding Editor
George.demopoulos@mcgill.ca