Western Regional Meeting Call For Papers

The American Chemical Society’s 44th Western Regional Meeting will be held on Oct. 3–6 in the San Francisco Bay Area’s Silicon Valley. The Santa Clara Valley and California Sections will cohost the conference at the Hyatt Regency Santa Clara.

The theme of the meeting is “The Many Elements of Chemistry.” Highlights will include a nuclear chemistry symposium in honor of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s Darleane C. Hoffman, who won ACS’s Priestley Medal in 2000, and a Cope Scholar symposium in honor of California Institute of Technology’s Sarah E. Reisman, who won one of this year’s ACS Cope Scholar Awards.

Scientists are encouraged to submit papers and posters as soon as possible because space is limited. Abstracts can be submitted at abstracts.acs.org until Aug. 23. Meeting registration is scheduled to open on May 1.

The technical program will include sessions on analytical, biofuel, environmental, fuel, inorganic, medicinal, nuclear, organic, organometallic, physical, polymer, and solar chemistry; chemical safety; chemistry and the law; entrepreneurship; ethnobotany; hydraulic fracturing; nanomaterials; natural products; pharmaceuticals; and renewables. Poster sessions will take place throughout the meeting.

The meeting will offer several programs for high school and college educators. Workshops in career and leadership development and safety are scheduled, along with a special pharmaceutical science workshop cohosted by CACO-PBSS, a professional organization for scientists in pharmaceuticals and life sciences.

An exhibition will feature graduate school representatives as well as vendors from the chemical sciences; it will also offer opportunities for small-group presentations. The early discounted rate for exhibitors will end on July 1. Vendors and sponsors can contact Lou Rigali at vendorchair@wrm2013.org for more information.

Special events will include an awards banquet with a talk by 2010 Priestley Medalist Richard N. Zare; evening presentations on beer by University of California, Davis, brewing science professor Charles Bamforth and on flavor chemistry by chemist and author Shirley O. Corriher and food scientist Sara J. Risch; a luncheon with ACS President Marinda Li Wu, sponsored by the California Section Women Chemists Committee; and a lunch with members of the ACS Board of Directors. A Sunday public outreach event at nearby California’s Great America theme park is also in the works.

For evolving meeting details, visit www.wrm2013.org.