A Message from the FMD Chair
Welcome to the Functional Materials Division (FMD)
It is my great privilege and honor to serve TMS and the materials community at large in the context of my role as the Functional Materials Division (FMD) Council Chair. I have been engaged with TMS and the FMD (formerly the Electronic, Magnetic and Photonic Materials Division - EMPMD) for my entire professional career and am very passionate about the organization. Over the course of my three-year tenure as the FMD Chair, I have committed to be guided by several key priorities:
- Enhancing diversity and promoting an inclusive culture of the FMD and the technical committees
- Encouraging a dynamic and progressive technical program that evolves with member needs
- Growing the presence and stature of the FMD within the TMS organization
- Establishing the FMD as a premier international professional organization for functional materials
- Fostering an interdisciplinary professional technical community with strong industry engagement
As a member-driven society, active participation of TMS members is critical to the well-being of our division and the overall society. The vision of TMS is to be the professional society of choice for the worldwide minerals, metals and materials community and this can only be achieved by meeting the technical, professional and organizational needs of our members. To realize this, we need an active, engaged membership, and we encourage and welcome you to become a part of the FMD community.
The committees that comprise the FMD encompass a wide range of materials applications and phenomena. Thus, the FMD is well positioned to contribute to the solution of very complex technological challenges that require the building of interdisciplinary connections, such as the ones that the FMD facilitates among its members. To increase the impact of the FMD within TMS and the materials community at large, we need active members who contribute by participating in a number of distinct ways including: (1) organization of symposia and special issues of the JOM; (2) organization of short courses and webinars that contribute to the further professional development of our members and (3) professional mentoring of junior members, etc.
The fast track to these many endeavors is through active membership in technical committees; therefore, I encourage you to attend any technical committee meeting (as a guest) held at the time of the TMS Annual Meeting. If you are interested in officially becoming a member of a technical committee after your initial engagement, please contact the committee chair(s) or myself. If you have suggestions for programming, content dissemination, or professional development topics, or if you have creative ideas that will help to promote one or more of my key priorities within the FMD and TMS, please do not hesitate to contact me, or any other member of our FMD Council.
Please do join me and the rest of the FMD Council as an active and engaged member as we seek to pursue these important priorities and initiatives, as well as to ensure strong technical programming and effective professional networking. Together, we can ensure that the Functional Materials Division of TMS plays a central role in the career of both the current and future generations of materials professionals.
Saryu Fensin, FMD Chair, 2023 – 2026
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