On Jeju Island, Korea, PACRIM 11 participants exchange ideas on ceramic industry megatrends

The 11^th International Conference of Pacific Rim Ceramic Societies (PACRIM 11) was held on Korea’s Jeju Island Aug. 30–Sept. 4, 2015. Chaired by Hai-Doo Kim, president of the Korea Institute of Materials Science and a Fellow of ACerS, the conference and exhibition were organized by the Korean Ceramic Society with the support of the ceramic societies of Australia, China, Japan, and the U.S.

The umbrella theme of plenary presentations at the conference, “Megatrends: what will come next?,” included the following plenary speakers and their topics:

Suk-Joong Kang, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology – Grain growth: An enduring subject in materials science and engineering
Yu Zhou, Harbin Institute of Technology, China – Fabrication, microstructural evolution, and mechanical properties of carbide, nitride, and boride ceramics
Teruo Kishi, Innovative Structural Materials Association, Japan – Megatrend of materials research and introduction of projects of structural materials in Japan
Oh-Hun Kwon, Saint-Gobain Northboro R&D Center, U.S. – Living comfortably with multifunctional ceramics: the opportunities and challenges ahead.

Abstracts of plenary presentations are available at pacrim11.org/Plenary_Speakers.php. In addition, dozens of speakers from Asia, Europe, and North America participated in the conference’s 38 symposia, which addressed topics related to multi-scale modeling and simulation; innovative processing and manufacturing; nanotechnology and structural ceramics; multifunctional materials and systems; ceramics for energy and the environment; and ceramics in biology, medicine, and human health.

The conference’s more than 1,000 attendees hailed from more than 30 countries and included some 300 students. ACerS was represented at PACRIM 11 by Kathleen Richardson, president; Mrityunjay Singh, president-elect; Richard Brow, past president; and Charlie Spahr, executive director. Members of ACerS Board of Directors H.T. Lin and Tatsuki Ohji were also at the conference, as well as past BOD members Michael Hoffman, Ivar Reimanis, and Raj Bordia. Mario Affatigato, co-editor of ACerS International Journal of Applied Glass Science, and Dileep Singh, PACRIM 12 chair, represented the ceramics and glass community at the event, among many other attendees from the field.

“The PACRIM collaboration is as strong as ever,” says Spahr. “The Korean Ceramic Society, with Hai-Doo Kim as chair and Young-Wook Kim as technical program chair of PACRIM 11, produced a truly international event in Jeju at a world-class venue. ACerS looks forward to building on the momentum generated here for the next event in 2017.”

The first PACRIM conference was held in Hawaii and hosted by the American Ceramic Society in 1993. Successive conferences have been held in countries throughout the Asia-Pacific region and North America. The conference series has established a strong reputation for state-of-the-art presentation and information exchange on the cutting edge ceramic technologies and have facilitated global dialogue and discussion with leading global experts.

The next conference in the series, PACRIM 12, will be held May 21–26, 2017, at the Hilton Waikoloa Village in Waikoloa, Hawaii. Dileep Singh, who leads the Thermal Management team at Argonne National Laboratory’s Center for Transportation Research, is organizing the conference. Go to ceramics.org/meetings/pacrim12 to sign up to receive PACRIM 12 updates by email.