Join the California Section for the Virtual ChemLuminary Awards on December 9th!
The California Section has been selected as a finalist for the following ChemLuminary Awards:
- Outstanding Local Section Industry Event
- Outstanding Project SEED Program Award
- Best New Public Relations Program of a Local Section
- Local Section Partnership Award/Marinda Li Wu Award
- MAC Industry Engagement & Outreach
- Outstanding Engagement with K-8 Students
We received the following message from ACS President Luis Echegoyen:
Thank you all for your patience and understanding as we pivot to new ways of planning celebratory events for our ACS members during the COVID-19 pandemic! Safety is a core value of the American Chemical Society, and it permeates all our actions, activities and events. Therefore, the 22nd Annual ChemLuminary Awards ceremony will be held virtually on Wednesday, December 9, at 4:00 p.m. Eastern Time. The ceremony will include a keynote address by Janet L. Bryant, recipient of the Award for Volunteer Service to the American Chemical Society, and the presentations of awards given by 23 committees of the Society will follow.
Since the ChemLuminary Awards celebration could not take place at the National Meeting in San Francisco, this is our chance to participate in the annual recognition of ACS volunteers, not the least the many California Section members who organized our 2019 programs. In addition to our outstanding Project SEED summer internship program, the California Section held the first Bay Area Chemistry Conference, an innovative collaboration with multiple corporate partners, and hosted “MANYA – The Living History of Marie Curie”, two memorable presentations by Susan Marie Frontczak.
Every student at Korematsu Middle School in El Cerrito had the chance to learn about Marie Curie’s career and the discovery of radium; two days later, we kicked off NCW 2019 with her performance at Laney College on October 19th, 2019. Our partnership with Korematsu Middle School started with a Family Science Night and Science Fair on February 25th, 2019, when Cal ACS volunteers presented a chemistry show and a half-dozen hands-on chemistry activities for students and their families, including several activities from the NISEnet “Let’s Do Chemistry” kit.
Finally, 2019 was the International Year of the Periodic Table, and the California Section wove this theme into numerous events that constitute an innovative Public Relations Program. Former ACS President Attila Pavlath brought together a team of chemists to create a series of 32 posters illustrating the history and significance of the elements in our everyday lives. The posters approach the diverse elements not only by the traditional chemical groups (alkali and alkali earth metals, halogens, noble gases), but also through familiar materials (micronutrients, alloys, semiconductors, precious metals, radioactive elements) and by applications (fireworks). These colorful, informative posters are available online in well over a dozen languages, including English, Chinese, and Arabic.
Elaine Yamaguchi worked with our colleagues at UC Merced to introduce the posters at a campus celebration on April 12th attended by well over one hundred faculty and students, including a dozen representatives from our Student Affiliate at CSU Stanislaus.
Back in the SF Bay area, we exhibited the Element posters for a large audience at the Lawrence Hall of Science in Berkeley on August 11th, while rededicating the 2000 National Historic Chemical Landmark for the Discovery of New [transuranium] Elements at LBNL.