ACA Council Vice President Candidate 2021: Cora Lind-Kovacs

Education

Pre-Diploma Chemistry, University of Wuppertal, Germany (1996); M.S. Chemistry, Ph.D. Chemistry, Georgia Institute of Technology (1999, 2001); Post-doctoral Associate, Cornell University (2001-2003)

Professional Activities

Professor, The University of Toledo; ACA Member since 1999; Etter Award 2007; US National Committee for Crystallography Member 2007-2009, Secretary 2010-2012, Vice Chair 2015-2017, Chair 2018-2020; ACA Powder SIG Chair 2008; Transactions Symposium Organizer 2015; IUCr Bragg Prize Selection Committee 2019/2020; American Association to Advance Powder Diffraction 2021; IUCr Commission on Powder Diffraction 2021-2023; ACA representative for IYCr planning and legacy conferences 2013, 2015; instructor in summer schools (ACA Summer School, Modern Methods in Rietveld Refinement and Structural Analysis, Duquesne/PANalytical Powder Workshop, National School on Neutron and X-ray Scattering); reviewer for APS, SNS, HFIR, NIST, ANSTO.

Research Interests

Structure-property relationships in solid-state materials, X-ray and neutron powder diffraction, Rietveld analysis, structure determination from powder data, non-ambient diffraction (low+high temperature, high pressure), phase transformations as a function of temperature, pressure and composition.

Statement

I am honored to have been asked to run for Vice President of the American Crystallographic Association. I joined the ACA as a graduate student, and started to attend ACA meetings as an assistant professor – ironically one year after two of my graduate students got to attend the 2006 Honolulu meeting while I had other obligations! I remember well how exciting it was to attend that first meeting, to be surrounded by people who love reciprocal space and everything related to crystallography as much as I do. Discovering how many people in the ACA are just as passionate as I am about education, outreach and training only made me feel more at home. It was an almost instant transition from being a “newbie” to being connected enough that I would run into people that I wanted to greet and chat with wherever I went. Finding opportunities to get involved and stay involved – as SIG chair, session chair, workshop and symposium organizer, summer school teacher, on the IYCr task force – was easy and natural, because I felt welcomed and encouraged to do so. ACA is a great place for anyone, well established crystallographers, early career scientists, and even students, to take on tasks and contribute.

I know quite a few people who had a very similar experience in getting connected with the ACA – but I also know others who did not, who felt like ACA had established “cliques” that were hard to get into. And maybe the difference is that I am very much an extrovert – I love meeting people, I love talking about pretty much anything crystallography related, and I don’t have a problem starting such conversations. So people like myself are likely to join ACA, attend that first meeting – and stay with ACA. But what about the others?

ACA, like many other organizations, has been struggling with a decline in membership. This of course forces us to think about how we can recruit new members. But the flip side of that coin is of course keeping members who joined! If we could simply have 25 new members join each year – not a huge number – and keep them all, our membership could grow by 250 in 10 years. If we can recruit 50, that number could be 500. So what can we do to help with that? One option may be to establish “meeting pals”, where any first time attendee could be paired with someone who is more familiar with ACA meetings already, so that they have someone to have lunch with, who can probably answer simple questions, and who can take the initiative to introduce them to others. The YSSIG may be a great starting point for putting something like this together, as many first time attendees will be students. But there are enough of us who are still YSSIG members who are only “young at heart” who could serve as contacts for more senior first time attendees. ACA already recognizes first time attendees with their badges, but this could be an additional opportunity to help them get connected and feel welcomed and at home. Of course, to make this work, we also have to devise strategies to recruit those 25, 50 or more new members.

Covid has been bad in many respects, but it also has taught all of us, or at least all of us “digital migrants”, way more about using virtual systems and online resources than most of us ever bargained for. I would love to see us put this knowledge to good use. Can we maybe create a monthly or bimonthly virtual crystallography seminar series? The ACS Inorganic Division has started to offer monthly Periodic Table Talks of their sub divisions, and these have been extremely well attended. I don’t know about you – but only a small number of the seminars in our department involve crystallography, so having something to attend throughout the year would be great. Similarly, can we create a platform for young crystallographers to practice their thesis defense, or their job interview talk? These would definitely be initiatives that add value to ACA memberships. If this is successful, we could even take it further, and have a student or postdoc talk competition. This would of course take more resources, both in terms of volunteer time commitment and monetary.

Another important question that ACA will need to address over the next couple of years is the format of the annual meeting. In 2020, most of us had a love-hate relationship with the virtual meeting format that was forced upon us. Love because we actually did get to have a meeting, and any meeting format was better than none. Hate because we would so have preferred to meet in person, have that cup of coffee or glass of wine while chatting with new and old friends. As Covid stretched into 2021, we attended more fully virtual meetings and maybe also hybrid meetings, saw more different styles and platforms. Some we may still hate, but others actually did a good job. Clearly, we want to hold in-person meetings again, and benefit from the networking, the friendships, the conversations that can only happen at such meetings. But there will likely be a growing expectation to make some kind of virtual participation possible. Virtual participation is inherently inclusive as it eliminates the need to travel, which can be difficult for some members with medical conditions, family obligations or disabilities. I don’t know the answer to “what will ACA meetings look like over the next few years?”, and I am painfully aware that running a hybrid meeting that allows full live participation in all sessions is the most cumbersome in terms of logistics, and also considerably more expensive than either in-person or fully virtual meetings. But I believe that we need to take a good, honest look at all the different options, and discuss the financial and logistical feasibility, to determine a path forward that will benefit the widest possible membership base.

Lastly, the ACA will also be involved in planning the 27th IUCr Congress, which will be held in Calgary AB August 11-18, 2026, together with the US and Canadian National Committees for Crystallography. The current plan for this meeting is to run in hybrid format, with the majority of attendees participating in-person, but also allowing virtual attendance. Any considerations that apply to near-future ACA meetings will provide valuable insights for planning this congress as well.