Rochester Section Incorporated of the American Chemical Society

The Rochester Local Section hosted the American Chemical Society Northeast Regional Meeting (NERM) in October 2022. We invested significant amounts of energy and effort as a team of local section members to organize programming that included many technical symposia, poster sessions and several special events. We worked to invite exhibitor participation, and had a clearing house of university tables for students to collect information on graduate schools. The meeting was very successful as we ended up with more than 900 attendees over 4 days, which exceeded our hopes and expectations for an excellent meeting.

A variety of membership activities were supported, including activities organized by the younger chemists committee (YCC), women's chemists committee (WCC), senior chemists committee (SCC) and lectures on the topic of emerging technologies. These activities were open to any and all members of the local section. YCC held four events, with partly engaged the DEIR theme. At all events, we offer support for hearing impaired attendees. Also included in our membership/student support, we allocate travel grant monies to support undergraduate student travel to conferences, so long as it is a bonafide American Chemical Society supported event. We had 10 students supported this year from the local colleges and universities in the Rochester, NY area.

Support for Project SEED to provide research experiences for students in high school to come to local universities on a 8 week program. To qualify, the American Chemical Society sets the participation standard that allocated funds to support socio-economically disadvantaged students. We had 6 students supported this year.

Each year we support a recognition dinner event to acknowledge 50, 60, and 70 year ACS members and to recognize highly active, contributing members in the local section. Awardees and a guest are provided a free dinner. Engraved plaques are also given to the honoree. Coupled with NERM, we had a great turnout, hosting more than 70 members and guests. Additional programmatic/membership activities include a wide variety of activities and small events to benefit varying groups within the local section. We have programming for women chemists, younger chemists, and senior chemists. An example is our collegiate research symposium (that draws student from the 8 local institutions as well as several others from the western and central New York region). General expenses also covers section officer travel and administrative costs to run the section (both of which are very carefully scrutinized and vetted for proper section business activities).