Comment: An update on Senior Chemists Committee activities

American Chemical Society meeting activities

The Senior Chemists Committee (SCC) activities during the American Chemical Society Fall 2024 meeting in Denver, held Aug. 18–22, included a full committee meeting on Monday, the SCC booth in the exhibition hall Monday through Wednesday, and the SCC Breakfast on Tuesday morning featuring guest speaker April A. Hill. Hill is a chemistry professor at the Metropolitan State University of Denver, and her presentation was titled “A Chemist’s Role in Forensics, Archaeology, and Accessibility.” She discussed how her group was developing methods for analyzing things such as suspected arson evidence and unmarked graves using dynamic vapor microextraction. Her group is using gas chromatography/mass spectrometry to identify residues extracted from ancient pottery and collaborating with the Denver Museum of Nature and Science to analyze residues in ancient Mayan beer vessels to re-create an authentic Mayan beer, which is now known to be honey based. She is also developing an artificial intelligence–based lab assistant that can relay lab procedures auditorily, record voice-dictated notes, and operate lab equipment by voice command for students who are blind or have low vision. The SCC Breakfast is held during both spring and fall ACS meetings and typically is a sold-out event. The breakfast is partially subsidized by the ACS Office of Philanthropy, so be sure to add this event to your plans when you register for an ACS meeting.

The ChemLuminary Award ceremonies were held Tuesday evening. The Midland Local Section won the Best Continuing Senior Chemists activity, and the North Carolina Local Section won the Best New Senior Chemists activity. Congratulations to both sections! Be sure to nominate your Senior Chemists’ group for an award in your local section’s annual report.

Planning for ACS Spring 2025 in San Diego is well underway. One of the activities will be an SCC and Younger Chemists Committee (YCC) networking event on Sunday. This popular event—often called the ice cream social—affords students and professionals the opportunity to discuss careers in chemistry with scientists from academia, industry, government, small business, start-ups, and other entities. And attendees get free ice cream! The SCC will also conduct its usual business meeting, hold the SCC Breakfast (speaker to be determined), and cosponsor a symposium.

Other SCC activities

The SCC continues to focus on its vision of “Senior chemists giving back” and mission of “Serving people through senior chemists’ knowledge and experience.”

SCC provides mini grants to assist local sections in conducting activities that encourage and involve senior chemists. In addition, we award diversity, equity, inclusion, and respect (DEIR) grants to entities other than local sections that engage and involve senior chemists and students from underrepresented communities. Four mini grants and three DEIR awards were funded in 2024. The time frame to apply is February to May each year. The SCC also provides funding to ACS regional meetings that organize activities that involve senior chemists.

The SCC and YCC continue to conduct a comentoring activity in which a member from the SCC is paired with a member from the YCC. The pairing is based on mutual interest, and meetings occur virtually. This activity has been a rewarding experience for the participants, and we expect to continue it through 2025.

For those local sections that do not have a senior chemists’ group, we encourage you to identify a champion to organize one. The SCC website has a manual titled ‘Learn how to start a Local Section Senior Chemists Committee’ available as a .PDF, which can be found at acs.org/content/acs/en/membership-and-networks/senior-chemists.html. This manual is a valuable source of guidance and other helpful information. It includes program ideas for local sections, funding ideas, information on how to get involved in regional meetings, ACS staff contact information, and more.

For those local sections with an existing and active senior chemists’ group, the SCC requests that the chairs of those groups send a message to seniorchemists@acs .org. This email contact information will help the SCC increase communication among these local sections and promote sharing ideas and activities that support senior chemists.

All ACS members who are age 50 and older are considered senior chemists—even though this is not the usual retirement age. We want to hear from all senior chemists. What can the SCC do to help you? What do you need? How can the SCC help your local section? Please contact us at seniorchemists@acs.org with your questions, comments, or recommendations.

Views expressed are those of the author and not necessarily those of C&EN or ACS.