It is a great pleasure and honor to be a TMS Young Leader recipient in 2005. I would like to express my gratitude to the Structural Materials Division (SMD) for selecting me. During the 2005 TMS annual meeting and exhibition, the Young Leaders program afforded me to attend eight committee meetings, four social function events, one luncheon lecture, numerous technical sessions and the exhibition including Structural Materials Division Council Meeting, Board of Directors Meeting, TMS Networking Mixer and TMS-AIME Annual Awards Banquet.

These experiences provided great opportunities for me to have insights how this prestigious society runs and how to get more involved. The knowledge I learned with respect to society management, membership development and committee organization were very instructive. These opportunities also helped me to meet old and new friends, and develop a network with established professionals as well as students and young professionals from all over the world. From these activities, I can truly feel that TMS strongly encourage and promote young professionals to participate in the technical committee business and management.

I believe that the objectives of the Young Leader Program are well met for my participation. I deeply appreciate TMS and SMD for giving me this valuable opportunity. I look forward to continuing my participation and make contribution to TMS in the future.

I am honored to be selected by the Extraction and Processing Division as a Young Leader Intern for 2005. I have been involved with TMS since my student days in 1994, but until recently, only through the technical presentations and publications. The Young Leader internship provided me the opportunity to see the workings of the society to the highest levels, including an invitation to attend the meeting of the Board of Directors. The Young Leader program has been an entirely positive experience so far. I look forward to continuing involvement in the future through the technical committees.

It was a very good TMS meeting in San Francisco. As a young leader’s intern I had a very positive experience when it comes to TMS as a whole. Very good papers were presented which helped me widen my outlook about the materials world.

It would be a good idea to involve every young leader intern with some sort of activity which would help them know the committee members on a personal level. I felt that this was lacking a bit or maybe I didn’t make conscious attempts. Maybe give an opportunity to the young leader intern to pair up with an individual from a committee based on their individual interest or specialization.

It has been a great experience for me to attend the TMS meeting Spring 2005. As a Young Leader Intern, I got the chance to attend many committee meetings that I am interested in. I attended the Young Leader Committee meeting and met many previous young leaders. It was great to hear about their experiences and know about how to be involved in symposium organizing. I also attended EMPMD committee meeting, Nano materials committee and several other committee meetings. I am planning to join one or two of these committees and help co-organizing one or two symposiums. I hope later on, I can organize my own symposium. The banquet for the TMS meeting was very successful. I saw many young researchers were recognized and even some students. I indeed felt this is a good way to grow TMS. I also presented an invited talk in one symposium and attended many other interesting symposiums related to my research area. I met many famous scientists in my research field.

I have been attended TMS and MRS meetings in the past several years. The most significant difference I saw in this TMS meeting is that many young faces were shown in the meeting places. Many graduate students were in the meeting. I believe, once we have these young people join our organization, TMS will grow much bigger in the near future. Another important scene is that this meeting is indeed an international conference. I met one of my classmates from China. She is working as a technical staff member in one of China Aluminum Companies. She was there to attend the meeting and exchange some technical information.

I would like to express my gratitude to the SMD for selecting me as one of their 2005 Young Leader Interns. Attending the 2005 TMS meeting as a Young Leader highlighted the many benefits of a TMS membership and helped me understand the inner-workings of the society. I’ve come to realize that the organization goes well beyond its tremendous networking opportunities and wide breadth of shared information in the various technical sessions. I enjoyed seeing how individuals from academia, government labs and industry work together to improve the materials community as a whole.

In my opinion, being a TMS Young Leader Intern is perhaps the quickest route for a young professional to get introduced to the structured yet intricate organizational machinery that is associated with TMS. The Young Leader Internship Program is providing me with just the appropriate platform that I was seeking.

While attending the 2005 TMS Annual Meeting & Exhibition at San Francisco this year, I quickly found that the title ribbon attached to my name tag that displayed “Young Leader” could indeed go a long way! In addition to having easy access to the divisional meetings, luncheons and receptions, I was encouraged to attend other Administrative/Technical committee meetings by the Coordinator (TMS Membership Services). As a result, I was able to interact with other TMS members and staff, who are already involved with the organization of activities related to the technical programs, membership development, and continuing education. At the beginning of each meeting, the chair would always introduce me to the rest of the members as a Young Leader, which helped in clearing the initial hesitation and apprehensiveness that lay within my mind. During the meetings, apart from being able to follow the current proceedings closely, I also received the minutes of the previous meetings, both of which enabled me to get a fair idea about how the business was conducted annually at TMS. The luncheons and mixer sessions provided the right kind of atmosphere for asking specific questions and volunteering my participation in the different committees, and these were handled by the senior members very well and with exceptional enthusiasm. It is needless to say that at all times, I felt comfortable and gladly-received, and that I was already becoming a part of the TMS family.

I am very appreciated of being selected as a TMS Young Leader Intern for 2005. I initially learned about the program through the TMS website. This program is a very beneficial aspect of TMS and should be a model for other societies. Having had the experience to be an intern, it is an ideal way to integrate new members or former TMS student members, like me, into making professional contributions to the society. The Young Leader Internship provided a pathway to meet key committee contacts in my field of interest. As a student member, I was relatively unaware of how a society operates, who to contact, and how a conference is operated. The internship provides the ‘behing-the-scenes’ knowledge on how to become a service-orientated member. Undoubtedly, this internship accelerated my professional integration into TMS.

At the spring meeting, I attended the Nanomaterials and Thin film & Interfaces sub-committees and the broad meeting of the Electronic, Magnetic & Photonic Materials Division. While at these committee meetings, I took part in the development of future symposium topics at TMS. For example, I became involved with the discussion at the Thin film & Interfaces sub-committee for a symposium on novel characterization techniques for high surface area materials. I hope TMS continues this program for future members; it is an ideal resource for TMS to motivate and educate new members into life-long service to TMS.

For more information on becoming a TMS Young Leader, why not join us for one of our committee meetings? Complete and submit the Young Leaders Participation Form or contact TMS Membership Department.

For information on participating in the Young Leader Intern Program, complete and submit the application form (PDF) or contact the TMS Membership Department.

Read the following comments and experiences submitted by former Young Leader Interns:

• Experiences of 2007 Interns at Annual Meeting
• Experiences of 2006 Interns at Annual Meeting
• Experiences of 2005 Interns at Annual Meeting
• Experiences of 2004 Interns at Annual Meeting
• Experiences of 2003 Interns at Annual Meeting
• Experiences of 2002 Interns at Annual Meeting
• Experiences of 2001 Interns at Annual Meeting