Upcoming Rheology Meetings (08-21-2020)
Dear SOR Members:
I write to you with some important updates about upcoming meetings. The SOR meeting in Austin originally scheduled for next February has been rescheduled to October 2024.
With regard to whether and how to proceed with a virtual February meeting, the meetings committee has given this a great deal of consideration. An important aspect of their
deliberations was the decision of the International Congress on Rheology (ICR) planning committee to hold a virtual meeting
this December (13th-18th) instead of a live one. Two virtual meetings so close together would potentially divide rather than serve the rheology community, so it has been decided
not to hold an SOR Winter Annual Meeting in 2021.
Instead, we strongly encourage SOR members to participate in the virtual ICR. This is a great opportunity
for SOR members to share their work with an international audience and learn about what rheologists around the world are doing. The ICR organizers have graciously agreed to schedule a plenary
time slot for the presentation of the SOR new Fellow Awards, Publication Award, Metzner Award, and Bingham Medal, followed by the plenary Bingham Lecture. There will also be an extended
time slot for the Metzner Award lecture, and the Gallery of Rheology will be integrated with a similar event that the ICR organizers were already planning. The ICR will reopen abstract submission
for talks and posters, so SOR members who were planning on submitting to the February meeting will the opportunity to present at ICR. Furthermore, in place of our traditional travel grant program,
SOR will provide free online ICR registration to all SOR student members in good standing on June 30, 2020. We're not going to try to squeeze an SOR business meeting in with all this, so we'll
have a virtual business meeting in February in lieu of the one that would have been held in Austin. Kudos to Anne Grillet, Andy Kraynik, Roger Bonnecaze, Paulo de Souza Mendes, Monica Naccache,
Ricardo Andrade, Marie-Claude Heuzey and Gerry Fuller for making all this happen.
It is disappointing, of course, not to be able to hold our meetings as planned. But these are unusual and challenging times, and I am confident that the plans described above will be successful
in promoting and disseminating rheology in the best way possible given our current situation.
Mike Graham
President, The Society of Rheology