Proceedings are an important and integral part of MRS meetings. In order to promote them and to encourage authors to participate and prepare high quality manuscripts, the Fall 2004 Meeting Chairs implemented an awards program for the best symposium manuscripts. The Meeting Chairs requested that Symposium Organizers select the winners based solely on the written manuscripts and not on the oral or poster presentations.

Winners have been designated on their respective symposium pages for the Fall 2004 proceedings. A list of winners also appeared in the MRS Bulletin. We hope that this recognition will reward authors for their efforts and draw attention to the very high quality papers that are published in MRS Proceedings.

Best Paper Nominations (Ribbon Awards):
The organizers of each symposium that publishes Proceedings (either on-line or in-print) nominated the outstanding papers (no more than 5%) from the accepted manuscripts in their symposium. Nominations were made based on both technical content and manuscript quality. Nominees were recognized with a ribbon printed on the first page of the paper and the award has been denoted in the table of contents both on-line and in the printed Proceedings (“Blue Books”).

Best Paper Awards (Trophy Awards):
The best manuscript from among the Nominations in each symposium were selected by the organizers to receive the Best of Symposium Proceedings Paper Award. The authors received a $100 award and a certificate from the Chairs. The paper was recognized with a trophy icon printed on the first page of the paper and the award has been denoted in the table of contents both on-line and in the printed Proceedings.

Outstanding Meeting Paper in JMR
The Journal of Materials Research (JMR) will invite the authors of the Trophy Award papers to submit a manuscript based on their paper to the Journal of Materials Research, where, upon being accepted, it will be recognized in the journal as an “Outstanding Paper” from the Meeting.