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2025 Activities Organized

In 2025 I continued my efforts to serve the ACS enterprise. These included the following activities:

A. POLY symposium on “Green Polymer Chemistry and Sustainability” (organized by H.N. Cheng and R.A. Gross).  ACS Fall 2025 Meeting, Washington, DC, August 17-21, 2025

B. CPRC-CINF symposium on “Beyond the Bunsen Burner: Navigating Tough Conversations and Situations” (organized by H.N. Cheng, Ron Hunter, and Sue Cardinal).  ACS Fall 2025 Meeting, Washington, DC, August 17-21, 2025

C. CPRC symposium on “Revolutionizing Science Communication: Innovation, Insight, and Impact” (organized by H.N. Cheng, Ron Hunter, and Greg Wiedman).  ACS Southeastern Regional Meeting (SERMACS), October 26-29, 2025, Orlando, FL.

D.  I am also serving as co-chair, program working group of the ACS Committee on Public Relations and Communications (CPRC). In addition to the symposia, I helped with the two workshops and three webinars that CPRC organized in 2025.

2023-2024 Symposia Organized

A. CPRC Symposium on “Innovative Methods of Communicating the Value of Chemistry to the Public” (organized by H.N. Cheng and Scott Goode).  ACS Southeastern Regional Meeting (SERMACS), October 22-26, 2024, Atlanta, GA.

B. Symposium on “Sustainability and Recycling of Materials” (organized by H.N. Cheng and Ranji Vaidyanathan). ACS Southwest Regional Meeting (SWRM), November 15-18, 2023, Oklahoma City, OK.

C. CPRC Symposium on “Innovative Ways to Convey the Value of Chemistry to the Public” (organized by H.N. Cheng and Scott Goode).  ACS Southwest Regional Meeting (SWRM), November 15-18, 2023, Oklahoma City, OK.

2022 Symposia and Webinars

In 2022, I continued with the theme of “Growth, Collaboration, and Advocacy.” The following symposia and webinars were organized. For convenience, they are grouped below:

A. Innovation and New Frontiers

AGFD symposium on “Big Data and Artificial Intelligence in Agricultural and Food Chemistry”
ACS Spring National Meeting, March 2022, San Diego, CA
Organized by Michael Appell, Brian Guthrie, and H. N. Cheng
Two oral sessions (13 speakers)

B. Sustainability

1.  ENVR symposium on “Innovative Materials and Techniques for Environmental Sustainability”
      ACS Spring National Meeting, March 2022, San Diego, CA
      Organized by Christie Sayes and H. N. Cheng
      Three oral sessions (29 talks), one poster session (7 presentations)

2.  POLY symposium on “Green Polymer Chemistry and Sustainability”
      ACS Fall National Meeting, August 2022, Chicago, IL
      Organized by H. N. Cheng and Richard A. Gross
      Nine oral sessions (79 speakers), 1 poster session (35 presenters)

3.  Symposium on “Sustainable Green Chemistry”
      ACS Southeastern Regional Meeting (SERMACS), October 2022, San Juan, PR
      Organized by H. N. Cheng and Juan Colburg
      Five oral sessions (29 speakers)

C. ACS Webinars on “Starting a Company”

1.  “The Role of Technology Transfer”
      June 1, 2022.  Produced by SCHB, BMGT, and ACS Webinar Team
      Speaker:  Marc Sedam.  Moderators: Jim Skinner and Diane Grob Schmidt

2.  “How to set up Equity and Security Structures”
      June 16, 2022.  Produced by SCHB, BMGT, and ACS Webinar Team
      Speaker:  Benji Jones.   Moderator:  Jim Skinner, Diane Grob Schmidt

3.  “How to set up Essential Business Contracts”
      July 28, 2022.  Produced by SCHB, BMGT, and ACS Webinar Team
      Speaker:  Jim Verdonik.   Moderator:  Jim Skinner and Diane Grob Schmidt

2021 ACS Presidential Symposia and Webinars

In my Presidential year (2021), I used the theme of “Growth, Collaboration, and Advocacy” to guide my activities. Historically, innovation is the engine of growth for most organizations, including the chemistry enterprise. A major component of innovation is to seek new areas for research and to use them for new applications and opportunities. Another component is the translation of research to innovation. Industrial involvement and entrepreneurship are helpful, and so is the effective collaborations between academia, industry, and government labs. To promote these developments, I worked with many collaborators within ACS to set up the following symposia and webinars.

A.  New Frontiers and Opportunities for Chemistry (May – August 2021)
1.  Presidential ACS Webinar Series: “Frontier Fridays” (click for details)

Outstanding lectures have been given by Professors Zhenan Bao (Stanford) on “Skin-Inspired Organic Electronics), Amy Prieto (Colorado State) on “Lithium Ion Batteries: The Road to Sustainable Energy Storage”, and Sir Fraser Stoddart (Northwestern) on “Artificial Molecular Machines.”

2. Presidential Symposium at ACS National Meeting (August 22-24, 2021) (click for details)

35 distinguished speakers will share frontier research and opportunities in advanced materials, nanotechnology, reticular chemistry, catalysis, biomedical, electronics, environment, and sustainability.

B. Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Collaborations (July – August, 2021)
1.  ACS Webinar Series on Entrepreneurship Training (click for details)

A series of webinars has been designed to show how to start a new business, from writing a business plan to organizing a company.  Useful information and tips can help you to increase the chance of success with your start-up.

2.  Presidential Symposium at ACS National Meeting (August 24-26, 2021) (click for details)

44 well-known and experienced speakers from academia, business, and government shared their knowledge and skills on Corporate Highlights, Business Success Factors, Funding, Government Agencies, Organizations serving Entrepreneurs, Technology Transfer, Patents, Regulatory Needs, and Case Studies of Innovation.

C.  Presidential Symposia at ACS Fall National Meeting (August 2021)

In addition, I have designated the following 12 symposia at the ACS Fall National Meeting (August 22-26, 2021) as Presidential or President Recommended.  Please look these up and attend them.

  1. Innovation/Industrial Theme
    1. Innovation, Entrepreneurship, Industrial Collaboration Symposium (Presidential)
    2. New Frontiers and Opportunities for Chemistry (ACS Committee on Science)
    3. Industrial Innovations in Polymer Science (ACS Polymer Chemistry Division)
    4. Innovation Portfolio Management (ACS Division of Business Development and Management)
    5. Moving Chemistry from Bench to Market (ACS Division of Medicinal Chemistry)
  2. Sustainability Theme
    1. Decarbonizing the Chemical Enterprise (ACS Division of Small Chemical Businesses)
    2. Innovative Materials for Environment sustainability (ACS Environmental Chemistry Division)
    3. Sustainability in Agriculture (ACS Agro Division)
    4. Sustainable Agriculture and Food Systems (ACS Environmental Chemistry Division)
  3. Resilience Theme
    1. Resilience in Chemistry – Plenary Session (Multidisciplinary Program Planning Group)
    2. Chemistry for Resilient Human Space Exploration Symposium (ACS Polymer Chemistry Division)
    3. Leadership and Resiliency in the Global Chemistry Enterprise – Celebrating the 40th Anniversary of CACS (ACS Energy and Fuels Division)
D.  Presidential Symposia at ACS Spring National Meeting (April 2021)
The following 10 symposia were Presidential or President Recommended in the ACS Spring National Meeting (April 2021):
    1. Sustainability: Advances and Applications (ACS Division of Agricultural & Food Chemistry)
    2. Ideas from Mind to Market: International Collaborations for Health, Wellness and Sustainability (ACS Division of Small Chemical Businesses)
    3. COVID: Lessons Learned (ACS Division of Professional Relations)
    4. Industrial-Academic Dialogue (ACS Division of Colloid & Surface Chemistry)
    5. Advancing International Chemical Business Innovation and Entrepreneurship: Launch, Leverage, Lead (ACS Division of Small Chemical Businesses)
    6. Lessons Learned from Starting a Chemical-Related Business (ACS Division of Industrial & Engineering Chemistry)
    7. Macromolecular Science at the Dawn of its Second Century (Multidisciplinary Program Planning Group)
    8. Excellence in Graduate Polymer Research (ACS Division of Polymer Chemistry)
    9. Chemistry and the Future of Plastics (ACS Committee on Science)
    10. Plastics and the Oceans: Chemistry for the Journey Ahead (ACS Committee on Environmental Improvement)

2020 Symposia and Webinars Organized

A. SCHB Symposium on “Sustainable Green Chemistry: Bench to Market” (organized by H.N. Cheng and Joe Sabol).  ACS Fall 2020 Meeting (Virtual), August 16-20, 2020.

B. ACS Webinar, “Starting a Company – Do you need a Business Plan” (organized by Jim Skinner, H.N. Cheng; moderator Diane Schmidt), October 28, 2002

C. ACS Webinar, “Starting a Company – Where do you get funding” (organized by Jim Skinner H.N. Cheng; moderator Diane Schmidt), November 5, 2020.

D. POLY Symposium on “Green Polymer Chemistry: New Products, Processes & Applications” (organized by H.N. Cheng and Rich Gross). ACS Spring 2020 Meeting – Meeting cancelled due to the pandemic.

E. POLY Symposium on “Excellence in Polymer Graduate Research” (organized by H.N. Cheng. Tim Long, Chris Ellison, and Christine Coltrain). ACS Spring 2020 Meeting – Meeting cancelled due to the pandemic.

F. CINF-CPRC Symposium on “Scientific Visualizations and Creative Presentations” organized by Sue Cardinal, H.N. Cheng, Steven Hayden and Preston MacDougall). ACS Spring 2020 Meeting – Meeting cancelled due to the pandemic.