An Invitation to Join The Society of Rheology

The Society of Rheology was founded in 1929 to foster the study of the mechanical properties of deformable materials. Through its Annual Meetings and the publication of the Journal of Rheology, the Society provides a forum for engineers, chemists, physicists, polymer scientists, food scientists, material scientists, biologists, and applied mathematicians to communicate current research in rheology. The present membership of about 1,400 is sufficiently small that the Society is able to respond quickly to their needs. The Society brings together a broad spectrum of individuals from academic, industrial, and governmental organizations whose interests include experimental methods, constitutive equations, material processing, flow of non-Newtonian fluids, mechanical behavior of solids, and theoretical and applied mechanics. Materials of interest include, among many others, polymers, paints, foods, biological fluids, and petroleum production fluids. The approach ranges from mathematical theory to industrial practice. A primary objective of the Society is to facilitate communication among rheologists interested in a wide variety of materials; between engineers and academics; between theoreticians and experimentalists.

The Society of Rheology is one of five founding members of the American Institute of Physics, which provides administrative services to the Society. By virtue of this affiliation, all members of The Society also automatically enjoy membership in the American Institute of Physics and thus receive Physics Today at no extra charge. The Society is also affiliated with the U.S. National Committee on Theoretical and Applied Mechanics. The Society is also a member of The International Committee on Rheology, which organizes the International Congress on Rheology, held every four years.

Meetings

The Annual Meeting of the Society is normally held in mid-October. This meeting attracts 400-500 registrants and is organized in such a way as to promote interactions between rheologists interested in different materials and in taking different approaches to solving rheological problems. There are normally no more than six simultaneous sessions, and the program includes plenary lectures, special symposia, informal evening discussions, and instrument exhibits. A banquet is held to honor the recipients of the Society's awards: the Bingham Medal, the Arthur B. Metzner Early Career Award, the Journal of Rheology Publication Award, and the Distinguished Service Award, all for outstanding contributions to rheology. Elected SoR Fellows of the year are also recognized at the banquet. The Annual Meeting for those years during which an International Congress on Rheology occurs (2016, 2020, 2023, 2027 etc.) is held early in the following year (except when the ICR is held in the United States).

Publications

Journal of Rheology, published six times per year, is the archive publication of the Society and evolved from the Transactions of The Society of Rheology, which first appeared as an annual publication in 1957. The Journal maintains a high standard of quality and endeavors to carry out its review process with minimum delay. The Rheology Bulletin is published twice a year and carries news of Society activities and other items of interest to rheologists. All members receive both the Journal and the Bulletin at no extra cost. The program and abstracts for the Annual Meeting are also published and are available online.

An Invitation

If you have an interest in rheology, you are invited to apply for membership online at the AIP site. To help us make our membership directory as useful as possible, please supply all the information requested. Dues are for a calendar year. You may start your membership on January 1 of either the present year or next year. In the former case, you will receive all the issues of the Journal for your first year of membership. If you have questions about the Society, please contact one of the officers.