Subject: FW: CoMSEF -- the Computational Molecular Science and Engineering Forum

From: "Golab, Joseph T" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 10 Nov 2000 08:19:57 -0600

Dear colleagues,

Next week's AIChE Annual Meeting in Los Angeles will see the kickoff of
CoMSEF, the Computational Molecular Science and Engineering Forum
(http://www.comsef.aiche.org/). Its first meeting will be on Wednesday, Nov
15, from 5:15-6:00 pm in the San Gabriel A room at the Westin Bonaventure.
I've agreed to serve as the first Chair and am writing to explain what
ComSEF is and intends to be.  

The purpose of this organization is to link the community of people who are
working in molecular modeling, both in science and engineering applications.
It is different from Divisions in AIChE and other societies in two important
ways.  First, its members can come from outside the sponsoring society.
Second, it is intended both to lead new activities and also to
collaboratively join together activities from different areas.

Membership requires only your interest in joining.  Joe Golab of BP is the
Vice Chair for Membership, and he will gladly add you to the membership list
(no dues!) if you send address and contact information to [email-masked],
putting "Re: CoMSEF" in your subject line.  In return, we will keep you
informed and provide avenues for you to share in the growth of this field.

The agenda of next Wednesday's meeting is:
(1) Describe the Formation Committee's vision of CoMSEF
(2) Introduce the initial officers and acknowledge the other members of the
Formation
Committee:
  Past Chair - Tim Anderson
  Chair - Phil Westmoreland
  1st Vice Chair - Grant Heffelfinger
  2nd Vice Chair - Peter T. Cummings
  Secretary-Treasurer - Carol Hall
  Vice Chair for Communications - Thanos Panagiotopoulos
  Vice Chair for Membership - Joe Golab
  Liaison Director (1 yr) - Paulette Clancy [MRS, ...]
  Liaison Director (1 yr) - Matthew Neurock [20, ...]
  Liaison Director (2 yr) - Pablo Debenedetti [1a, ...]
  Liaison Director (2 yr) - Sanat Kumar [8, ...]
(3) Describe the organization structure
(4) Describe the scheduled 2001 Reno Topical Conference [Phil Westmoreland
and Grant
Heffelfinger]
(5) Solicit programming input for 2002 Indianapolis [Peter Cummings]

We have come to this point thanks to the CoMSEF Formation Committee, led by
Tim Anderson. This group has put together the consensus and the documents
needed to achieve official status within AIChE.  It and the Forum involve
people from different parts of AIChE and outside it, including programming
groups and areas in AIChE Group 1, 2, 4, 8, 9, 10, 15, and 20.  As
participants in such groups, we have vested interests in complementing and
augmenting their strengths, recognizing at the same time that no existing
group encompasses the range of techniques and applications in molecularly
based modeling.  For example, 1a (Thermo and Transport) and 20 (Catalysis
and Reaction Engineering) have many common interests in the field but many
different ones, too, plus interests beyond molecular modeling.  Likewise,
molecular modeling is increasingly a complement to experiments.

This confederated and intentionally synergistic approach is quite new for
AIChE or most other societies.  We want to draw people together to make the
Forum a successful medium for making effective use of these theories and
methods. We hope you share this commitment.

Phil Westmoreland and Tim Anderson

--
Phillip R. Westmoreland, Professor and Graduate Program Director
Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Massachusetts Amherst
157A Goessmann, Box 33110; 686 N Pleasant; Amherst MA 01003-3110
413-545-1750 (6159 sect'y), FAX 413-545-1647; Lexington 781-259-8207
http://www.ecs.umass.edu/che/westmoreland.html