September_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 | S E P T E M B E R 2 0 2 0 5 6 Zi-Kui Liu, FASM FROM THE PRESIDENT’S DESK FROM THE PRESIDENT’S DESK Time Flies Logarithmically Inmaterials science and engi- neering, we talk about fundamen- tals of thermodynamics, kinetics, crystallography, and defects and their correlations with chemistry, processing, microstructure, and properties. Among all of them, the kinetics andprocessing involve the change of materials with respect to time, such as the time-tempera- ture-transformation (TTT) or con- tinuous cooling transformation (CCT) diagrams. You may have noted that the time in TTT and CCT diagrams is plotted in logarithmic scale, enabling us to have a better understanding of whole processes from beginning to end. There are two interesting features: First, time has no zero as the logarithmic of time zero is negative infinite, and second, the same length at different locations on the axis of time represents the lengths of time differing in orders of magnitude, giving an impression that time gets more and more compressed when the process is moving toward its end. This certainly applies to the process of being the ASM President. It is extremely hard to trace back to the beginning when this process started. One could argue that a single crit- ical event triggered the process, yet there were many prior incidents that enabled such an event. That is how history is made: There is no zero of time, and every event seems acci- dental and random, yet so inevitable. Nevertheless, one can always select a reference point for the purpose of counting, and a convenient one would be the day that one joins ASM International as a member, with events one after another through volunteering and leadership in chapters, technical/ symposium/administrative committees, and Board of Trust- ees. I am so grateful for everyone who believes in, encour- ages, supports, and pushes me to do better than my best along the way. One can select the day that the Vice President (VP)- elect is announced as a reference point to examine the journey of VP-elect, VP, President (P), and Immediate Past President (IPP) which spans approximately 1250 days. The first 100 days count for nearly 2/3 of the total length in the logarithmic scale of time; that was exactly what all ASM Past Presidents (PP) told me: the VP/P/IPP journey flies like a breeze. So it did. Let me bring you back to my first 100 days. In April/ May 2018, I contacted ASM Presidents since 2011, i.e., Mark Smith, Christopher Berndt, Gernant Maurer, Ravi Ravindran, Sunniva Collins, John Tirpak, William Frazier, Frederick Schmidt, and David Furrer (VP at that time), and asked for their Vision Statements, their experiences, and their advice. I am so grateful to all of them for sharing their visions and insightful summaries of their experiences. Their individual in-depth views and perspectives helped me to gain a bet- ter understanding of the challenges and opportunities ASM International had been facing. I particularly liked the Board- led Task Forces initiated by David Furrer in 2017, aiming to bridge the gap between the strategic plan and operations of ASM International and engage more discussions among members of the Board of Trustees (BoT) and with volun- teers and operations management team (OMT). That was an excellent initiative. My first face-to-face meeting with the BoT and OMT was at the ASM Leadership Days and Strategic Planning Meeting in July 2018. I had in-depth conversations with many ASM volunteer leaders and BoT/OMT members, both collectively and individually. One could sense the ele- phant in the room: the misalignment between BoT and OMT, which inevitably resulted in the change of leadership in May 2020 (Vol. 178, No. 5, p 72). The next 100 days started at the MS&T 2018 confer- ence in October in Columbus. In addition to the packed BoT events, I scheduled individual meetings with a num- ber of ASM employees and OMT members and listened to their activities and thoughts. It was great to hear that ASM was moving toward a digital platform with its technical contents, which placed the society in a good position for dealing with the COVID pandemic (Vol. 178, No. 4, p 70). Another significant item was the discussion on the devel- opment of international activities. Further investigation of ASM membership demographics showed that only 20% of ASM memberships were outside of the U.S. compared with 40-50% in other materials societies and 60% in IEEE, resulting in the establishment of the BoT-led Global Net- work Task Force, which ultimately became one of four key initiatives of the ASM Strategic Plan discussed at the Stra- tegic Planning Meeting in August 2019 and finalized in the Spring 2020 (Vol. 178, No. 2 p 56). ASM International has since initiated discussions with several materials societies in other countries on a broad range of potential collabora- tions. In a virtual meeting on July 22 with 20 PPs since 1982, I also learned about the significant international efforts that ASM made between 1985-2000. As IPP in 2020-2021 and PP in the future, I will continue promoting global partnerships and collaborations to further enhance the impact of ASM International through its memberships and technical con- tents. Wishing ASM all the best! ASM President Zi-Kui Liu, FASM zi-kui.liu@asminternational.org