2003 SPRING MEETING CHAIRS

Welcome to the Meeting
Welcome to the 2003 Materials Research Society Spring Meeting. We have an exciting program that includes 25 symposia highlighting new advances in the understanding, synthesis, and application of materials, from fundamentals to devices, in nanomaterials, biomaterials and self-assembled materials. There will also be an exhibit, poster sessions, five tutorials, and presentations from the Plenary Speaker, Outstanding Young Investigator Award winner, and the Graduate Student Award finalists.

MRS meetings are always a combination of many new and developing areas of materials science as well as some well established and popular topics. Symposia on electronic and optoelectronic materials will bring us the state-of-the-art in organic, inorganic and hybrid materials, flexible displays, and photonic bandgap devices. Several silicon-centric symposia will cover areas ranging from amorphous and nanocrystalline films, CMOS front-end technology, low-k dielectrics, interconnects, and reliability to a symposium on chemical mechanical planarization. There will be a symposium on integration of heterogeneous thin-film materials and devices and on nanostructuring materials with energetic beams and advanced optical processing. Significant emphasis is placed in the program on the emerging fields of molecular, bio-, and nanomaterials, such as molecular-scale electronics, nanotube-based devices, nanostructures, bioMEMS, and materials inspired by nature. In addition, there will be symposia dedicated to materials modeling, spintronics, and electrochemical materials processing.

Symposium X, Frontiers of Materials Research, offers a series of lunchtime talks in which experts give overviews of interesting materials-related topics for a nonspecialist audience. This year's Symposium X will address the future of Si technology, and introduce nanocrystals and biochemistry. The program will also feature presentations about workforce issues and intellectual property. In addition, OYI speaker Timothy Deming of the University of California, Santa Barbara, will discuss Synthetic Polypeptides: New Developments in an Old Field.

To complement the scientific sessions, tutorial sessions will provide a detailed introduction to particularly exciting areas of research. Also, the exhibit will showcase products of interest to the materials community.

Tuesday afternoon will feature participants from the National Materials Advisory Board study on Materials Research to Meet 21st Century Defense, examining Department of Defense needs and priorities in materials. The National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA) will present funding seminars on Tuesday evening; the Department of Energy (DOE) and Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) funding seminars will take place on Thursday evening

The poster sessions are an important part of MRS meetings and will be held on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday evenings. The meeting chairs will recognize the best posters during the evening sessions with prizes of up to $500, and the winning posters will be displayed prominently throughout the remainder of the meeting.

One of the most important responsibilities of the meeting chairs is encouraging others to organize symposia. Then the chairs, symposium organizers, MRS committee members, and the MRS headquarters staff work together to create and manage the meeting. It has been a pleasure to collaborate with this enthusiastic and talented group of people.

We welcome your comments, opinions, and active participation in the 2003 Materials Research Society Spring Meeting. Your support and feedback are vital to the success of future MRS events.

Terry Garino Sandia National Laboratories MS 1411 P.O. Box 5800 Albuquerque, NM 87185-1411 Tel 505-845-8762 Fax 505-844-9781 tjgarin@sandia.gov	Hans-Joachim Gossmann Axcelis Technologies 108 Cherry Hill Drive Beverly MA 01915 Tel 978-787-9620 Fax 978-787-4050 Hans.Gossmann@axcelis.com
Lisa Klein Rutgers University Dept. of Ceramic & Materials Engineering 607 Taylor Rd. Piscataway NJ 08854-8065 Tel 732-445-2096 Fax 732-249-8890 licklein@rci.rutgers.edu	Albert Polman FOM-Institute AMOLF Kruislaan 407 NL-1098 SJ Amsterdam The Netherlands Tel 31-20-6081234 Fax 31-20-6684106 polman@amolf.nl