Materials chemistry workshop series debuts

Imagine being served a sumptuous five-course meal in a fine restaurant—and being given only 15 minutes to enjoy it. That's what the first National Science Foundation (NSF)-sponsored Materials Chemistry Workshop was like. The workshop, held late last month in Albuquerque, N.M., tantalized its select group of 35 participants with a rich smorgasbord of materials topics. But the feast—a rapid-fire succession of 30 halfhour presentations on research results— was so tightly crammed into two days, and much of the material was presented so hurriedly, that some listeners found it difficult to absorb, much less savor. The workshop, as envisioned by its organizers, chemists Mark J. Hampden-Smith of the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, and William E. Buhro of Washington University, St. Louis, was to be a forum for "provocative and stimulating discussion of new directions" in the emerging field of materials chemistry, according to their NSF proposal. "Polished" talks of the type typically given ...