May/June_AMP_Digital

HIGHL IGHTS A D V A N C E D M A T E R I A L S & P R O C E S S E S | M A Y / J U N E 2 0 2 0 7 0 ASM Imagines the Future It would have been hard to imagine just a few months ago that so many parts of the world would be locked down due to the COVID-19 pandemic. As my college dean, Prof. Lee Kump, said during our commencement, “When it is hard to imagine, imagine harder.” The COVID-19 pandemic has changed how we lived during the last several months and will have a lasting impact on our lives in the foreseeable future. For me, the changes started in January. I canceled our annual group gathering for the lunar new year, postponed a group outing in February, canceled a trip to China to celebrate my mother’s 80th birthday, had our research group working from home during Spring Break, and started online teaching afterwards. Starting in March, professional conferences were can- celled or postponed, one after another, including ASM’s AeroMat 2020 conference and the CALPHAD conference in May. All nonessential activities were either stopped com- pletely or moved online and delivered from individuals’ homes, such as my first virtual chapter visit with the Bran- dywine Valley Chapter. While this seems very dramatic to us, we should think of the health professionals working at the frontline against the COVID-19 pandemic, millions of patients around the world fighting the virus, people who lost the battle, and millions of workers who lost their jobs. Our thoughts are with them. Nevertheless, one thing we can do, is “imagine harder” how ASM International can move forward under such unprecedented challenging settings. The central questions to me are always, “Why am I doing this? How can I do bet- ter?” (See AM&P, April 2020, p. 71). The answers to the first question ensure we stay on the track toward our strategic goals based on ASM’s vision and mission, while the answers to the second question require us to keep developing better approaches to solve tougher challenges such as the COVID- 19 pandemic. A challenge is at the same time an opportu- nity. What opportunity does the COVID-19 pandemic offer for ASM? The answer: Digital. ASM has invested heavily in the digital transformation over the last several years, and much of our legacy technical content is now available in the ASM Digital Library. I encourage you to visit https://www. asminternational.org/online-databases-journals and share your comments and suggestions for further improvement. Many ASM education courses are going digital, and Chapters can work out an agreement with ASM Headquar- ters to offer those courses locally to their members and companies to not only make better connections in the region, but also help improve Chapter finances. In the cur- rent COVID-19 pandemic, ASM has been able to deliver train- ing courses through online streaming for most May physical classroom enrollments. ASM has also purchased a Zoom license for each Chapter so meetings can be conducted online. As the whole world is moving more content online, and newmaterials information is constantly developed, ASM must develop new approaches to more efficiently gather, process, and disseminate materials information globally for members, Chapters, organizations served by our members, and the materials community. I hope that you took time to read the “ASM Strategic Plan Highlights” published in the February/March issue of AM&P (p. 56-57) and on ASM’s website. ASM’s vision remains to be the leading global resource of materials information and to excel in the three critical areas of increased mem- bership, technical content excellence, and partnerships. To examine key forward-looking topics of interest to the overall membership, the ASM Board of Trustees initiated several task forces since 2017 including Education, Commit- tee Restructuring, Student and Young Professional Member- ship, Digital Strategy, Global Network, and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) plus the latest one on Chapters and Vol- unteerism as the refocus of the Student and Young Profes- sional Membership Task Force. The Education and Committee Restructuring Task Forces were sunset in 2019. The Committee Restructuring Task Force addressed the need for ASM technical commit- tees on varying topics for varying durations. Its direct out- come is an “Operational Superstructure” to foster increased communications and customer-supplier relationships between committees and increased volunteerism by main- taining autonomy of committees and freedom of topic exploration, enabled by a common framework. Based on this new procedure, our Immediate Past President Dr. David Furrer is leading an effort to create the Residual Stress Com- mittee through the new procedure. If you are interested in organizing technical committees, please reach out to us, so we can help you along the way. The ongoing task forces are continuing their regular meetings. It should be mentioned that the Board-led task forces are open to members interested in those topics and if you would like to join one and share your thoughts and ideas, please let us know. As a membership-based profes- sional society, your continued involvement with ASM activ- ities at all levels is critical for the future success of ASM International. ASM President Zi-Kui Liu, FASM zi-kui.liu@asminternational.org Zi-Kui Liu, FASM FROM THE PRESIDENT’S DESK FROM THE PRESIDENT’S DESK