Dear PMSE Members and Friends:

New Orleans - jazz, Cajun food, Bourbon Street, Mardi Gras - wait! We're here for science! And science is what we will have in the PMSE Division program in New Orleans.  

Our program committee has developed a great set of symposia for the meeting involving polymer interfaces and surfaces, adhesion, drug delivery systems, and much more. The Cooperative Research Award symposium will be held in honor of the awardees Stephen F. Hahn, Dennis A. Hucul, Frank S. Bates, Glenn H. Fredrickson, and Edward K. Kramer. In addition, PMSE will host the ACS Award Symposium in honor of Anne Hiltner. The division's award winners will be honored at the joint PMSE/POLY Awards Reception on Monday evening.

Don't forget the poster session on Tuesday evening and the hospitality suite we co-host with POLY afterwards.

At PMSE, we are constantly looking for ways to enhance service to our members. We have recently improved access to our preprints by working closely with ACS Publications to develop a new website. We currently have all preprints from the present back to 2001 on the web and PMSE members have access to all of these preprints. Going forward, we are planning to archive past preprints as they are available. In addition we plan to eventually eliminate this CD, moving preprint access solely to the website. This move will enhance members' ability to access preprints from anywhere at anytime, and also improve our ability to offer institutional subscriptions.

Hopefully you are aware that the Division has developed a new strategic plan, which was formally adopted at the spring meeting in Chicago. This strategic plan includes a new Mission Statement, Vision Statement, and four Strategic Goals. The Vision Statement succinctly describes what we as a division want to be: Reaching out across technical, generational, and international boundaries to create the premier home of materials science and engineering for the global chemistry community. In order to accomplish this Vision, the three Goals are:

Goal #1: Transform program content to capture emerging trends in materials science and engineering for the global chemistry community.  

Goal #2: Create the premier interactive web portal in materials science and engineering for the global chemistry community.  

Goal #3: Strengthen the chemistry community in materials science and engineering by fostering interactions and creating an enhanced global presence.  

Currently there are task forces working on each of these three Goals, and you should hearing more about these goals in future Division newsletters.  

This is an exciting time for the Division as we seek to embrace the opportunities that lie ahead of us. I am looking forward to leading the Division forward in 2008, implementing the new strategic plan, and identifying new ways the Division can meet the needs of its membership.  

Dean C. Webster
PMSE Chair