Greetings loyal BITeS readers. It's hard to believe that it is once again time to start planning for our Undergraduate Research at the Frontiers of Inorganic Chemistry oral and poster sessions at the spring ACS meeting. This coming March we return to the place where VIPEr officially launched on the internet, New Orleans. This year my co-organizers are Lori Watson and Chip Nataro, but we all know it is me who does all of the hard work. Abstract submission is open and the deadline for submission to the Division of Inorganic Chemistry (DIC) is Monday October 23rd. We have every reason to believe that there will be high demand for our oral presentions slots, so we will very likely have to limit oral presentations to one from each faculty mentor/research group. In addition, we will be doing something new this year. The faculty advisors of all undergraduates that submit abstracts for oral presentations should anticipate a follow-up e-mail from either Lori or Chip. This e-mail is to ensure that faculty are aware of this submission from the student and a reminder about the expectations of presenting in the DIC. Finally, we are seeking volunteers to be session chairs. This is a great way to get involved in the greater IONiC community and get your name out among our members. We especially encouarage people that might be approaching tenure to volunteer. Honestly, it isn't a lot of work and seriously, if Chip can do it anyone can. If you are interested please contact either Lori or Chip as soon as possible. While we don't have an official schedule yet, they have some pretty good ideas as to how the schedule will likely turn out. We also anticipate hosting a social hour on Monday, stay tuned for details. Right now I am busy looking for the right spot, mmmmmm! I look forward to seeing old friends and making new ones in NOLA!
