0627ctt GYIF

[image above] Eva Hemmer accepts the inaugural Global Young Investigators Forum Award from Sujanto Wadjaja (left) and Michael Halbig (right). Credit: ACerS

Launching a career can be challenging. How do you get your “break”? When is the right time to make your entrance? And where can you go to meet the professional community you are trying to join?

The 4th Global Young Investigators Forum at the International Conference and Exposition on Advanced Ceramics and Composites is a good place to debut. The conference is January 25–30, 2015 in Daytona Beach, Fla.

Abstracts are due July 16, 2014.

Sanjay Mathur, professor of inorganic and materials chemistry, saw these needs among young researchers in his research group at the University of Cologne, Germany. He supervises about 40 undergraduate and graduate students, aided by several postdoctoral researchers, and was pondering how to involve young investigators like his students in a meaningful way. He also was organizing chair of the ICACC in 2012 and hatched the idea to organize a forum at the conference to showcase the research efforts of graduate students.

Eva Hemmer delivers the GYIF award lecture at ICACC 2014. Credit: ACerS

Mathur tapped one of his senior Ph.D. candidates—Thomas Fischer—to organize the first Global Young Investigators Forum (GYIF), which took place at that 2012 meeting. Last year ICACC organizers raised the visibility of the GYIF even more by initiating a GYIF award lecture. The first winner was Eva Hemmer, a postdoctoral researcher at the Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique (INRS), Canada.

Fischer, who is will defend his Ph.D. thesis soon, is organizing the fourth GYIF, which will take place in January 2015 with the 39th ICACC.

Fischer says the forum is especially beneficial for young scientists, “Normally at conferences you have established scientists and huge sessions, and it’s a little bit of a barrier. We wanted to lower this barrier by having a session on our own, but one where the established scientists also take part.” A second goal, he says, is to create “a venue where young people can meet and try to find their own networks.”

Along those lines, ACerS organizes events at ICACC through its Young Professionals Network that make it easy and fun for young members to meet, network, and launch that career.

The most up-to-date details about the event are on the conference website.

And what if you are a “grown up” researcher? Your abstract deadline also is July 16, 2014.

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