TMS conference overview

Pictured below is the program for the 2009 TMS conference. It is HUGE.

Not a phone book

Inside the program, you can skim through hundreds of pages of research abstracts and timetables for session speakers.

Time to break out the microscope!

Luckily, the program had an index of researchers (to satisfy the groupies) and a table of contents of general topics presented in each room and the date and time of each topic. Even though our group attended only two days of the conference, I was overwhelmed by the choices, so I chose a room with sessions focusing on a relatively new material in which I am interested but would otherwise not have the opportunity to learn about (bulk metallic glasses – Dr. Flores‘ area of expertise) and camped out there for a few hours. I occasionally bopped over to the biomaterials room, my other area of interest, and discovered that there was some crossover between bulk metallic glasses and biomaterials. Interesting. I also attended a session presented by Dr. Williams, because I am an unapologetic Williams groupie. (There were quite a few of us in the room for his talk.)

Overall, I really enjoyed listening to a lot of the presentations at the conference and learned so much about materials research being performed worldwide. It’s easy to find your scope limited by your required classes at school (which can cover only so much material in ten weeks), so TMS provided the breath of fresh air that I needed to see that there are still a lot of possibilities out there in the materials world.

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