2021 CME NASA Symposium

This two-day symposium is organized by CME and NASA with the principal sponsorship of the ACS Division of Polymer Chemistry (POLY). This symposium is part of the five-day ACS Fall 2021 Meeting at the Atlanta Convention Center. Typical pre-COVID attendance of national meetings was more than 15,000. Over 2,400 STEM professionals and students have attended past CME NASA Symposiums from 2017 to 2019. The 2020 symposium was cancelled due to COVID.

The CME NASA STEM Symposiums focus on bringing together industry, academia, government and the public to enlarge and enhance the global STEM talent pool. It will feature the resiliency of science cutting-edge innovations in the chemical sciences to advance human space travel to the solar system and beyond, and translate them into new knowledge to improve the lives of people and make their dreams a reality. Two days packed with inspirational research, industry, jobs and new STEM career paths.

Co-organized by PMSE, and conceived and sponsored exclusively by CME, the original annual ACS Global Outstanding Student and Mentor Awards in Polymer Science and Engineering offers two student cash prizes of $7,500 each. The selection committee is conformed by the following eminent researches:

Professor Bert Meijer, Eindhoven University of Technology, Netherlands
Professor Takuzo Aida, Tokyo University, Japan
Professor Sarah Heishorn, Standford University, USA
Professor LaShanda Korley, University of Delaware, USA
Dr. Qinghuang Lin, Lam Research, USA

For information on nominations, go to: https://pmsedivision.org/global-outstanding-student-award/

On August 28, 2021, an in-person award presentation was organized by CME to celebrate Austin Evans for his ACS Global Outstanding Student Award in Polymer Science and Engineering. An Award of Service was also presented to CME Co-Chair Ksenia Takhistova for her dedication as the only CME NASA Symposium presider on the ground at the ACS FALL 2021 meeting in Atlanta. Dinner attendees were:

Austin Evans, Columbia University Post Doc
Madelyn Evans, ExxonMobil Research
Ksenia Takhistova, CME Co-Chair, Technology and IP Attorney
Steve Barnett, CME Co-Chair, Connell Foley LLP Partner
George Rodriguez. CME STEM Programming
Robert Nolan, CME Treasurer, Doctoral Program Prof. at CUNY
Michael Jaffe, PMSE Past Chair, NJIT Professor, ex-Celanese
Anna Ivashko, I&EC Program Chair, ExxonMobil
Kate Yudd, Amazon Logistics
Benjamin Elling, Assistant Professor at Wesleyan
Shayan Louie, Post Doc Columbia