The American Crystallographic Association is deeply grateful to Virginia Pett, who is concluding her service as ACA Historian. Virginia’s dedication, care, and steady leadership have played a vital role in preserving the history of our Association and ensuring that ACA’s legacy remains accessible to current and future generations.
Earlier this month, the American Crystallographic Association convened Special Interest Group (SIG) officers, new leaders, and members of Council for a focused discussion on the future of SIG engagement and the long-term strength of the Association.
We are pleased to share that the American Crystallographic Association (ACA) has been invited to participate in a new national initiative — REV UP, led by the American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT) and funded by the AIP Venture Fund.
We wanted to share a quick update about our presence on the platform X. While the ACA account will remain available, it won’t be actively monitored moving forward. Over the past year, many in the scientific community have moved away from X, and we’ve seen engagement there drop off significantly. Because of this, it’s no longer the best place for us to connect with you.
We’re pleased to announce the American Association to Advance Powder Diffraction (AAAPD), a grassroots organization that was formed to be a voice for the powder diffraction community to ensure a bright future for this field.
The 2025 Nobel Prize in Chemistry has been awarded to Richard Robson, Susumu Kitagawa, and Omar M. Yaghi for the development of metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) — remarkable crystalline materials that are transforming how we capture, store, and use molecules.
The 2025 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded jointly to John Clarke (UC Berkeley), Michel H. Devoret (Yale/UC Santa Barbara), and John M. Martinis (UC Santa Barbara) “for the discovery of macroscopic quantum mechanical tunneling and energy quantization in an electric circuit."
We are at a pivotal moment for U.S. structural science. The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) has announced that, effective January 1, 2026, it will withdraw from the International Union of Crystallography (IUCr) and dissolve the U.S. National Committee for Crystallography (USNC/Cr). This action ends a long tradition of national representation and threatens the continuity of U.S. engagement with the global crystallography community.
The American Crystallographic Association proudly recognizes three outstanding scientists whose work is advancing the frontiers of structural science:
The U.S. crystallographic community is undergoing a critical transformation. Since 2018, when the National Science Foundation (NSF) designated crystallography a “mature” field and ceased direct support for the U.S. National Committee for Crystallography (USNC/Cr), the committee has been sustained by private donations, a single NIST grant, and careful budgeting. This patchwork funding model, however, has proven unsustainable. For example, NAS is paid for its services and has not kept pace with basic USNC/Cr management responsibilities, such as updating committee appointments, maintaining its public website or interacting with IUCr.
As I’m writing this column for our summer newsletter, we are rapidly approaching our 75th annual meeting in Lombard, IL. The meeting committee and headquarters team have been working overtime to get everything in order, and to make it a fantastic celebration of our community. I would like to extend a personal pre-emptive thanks to everyone involved, from our Meeting Committee, headquarters team, session chairs, speakers and poster chairs who are all contributing to make our annual meeting one with something for everyone.
What a thrill to be asked to share a few thoughts on leadership with the ACA community. In some respects, ACA provided me with my first ‘official’ leadership opportunity when I was elected to Council as Vice President in 2014. I had been leading a research group for about 15 years at that point, yet that was a very different experience, for sure. I felt drawn to the opportunity- ACA had been my scientific home for years, and some committee work had whetted my appetite for deeper engagement. I also felt that the ACA was then at a bit of a critical crossroads, and that I could contribute to re-tooling some aspects of operations. I was not explicitly aware of this at the time, but it turns out a strength that I have is to recognize the interconnected nature of challenges and opportunities, and to recognize what is important to a diverse group of stakeholders. As my leadership journey has continued, now to include Chemistry Department Chair for the past six years, I find that recognizing and acknowledging what is important to people, and then advocating for that within institutional constructs is rewarding and provides a wonderful sense of purpose.
The ACA is proud to celebrate a major milestone in the career of Dr. James Kaduk, who has been elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)—one of the highest distinctions in the scientific community.
To Our Members and the Scientific Community: As the leadership of the American Crystallographic Association (ACA), we remain steadfast in our commitment to the core values that define our organization: scientific excellence, integrity, inclusivity, and the free exchange of knowledge. In light of ongoing changes and challenges, we reaffirm our dedication to fostering an environment where science thrives, diverse perspectives are valued, and the highest standards of research and collaboration are upheld.
Spring is coming soon! Every year, on the 1st of April, the ACA collects nominations for its Fellows program. When I was elected a 2021 ACA Fellow, to be honest, I hadn’t put much thought into why professional organizations bother to make such distinctions. Certainly, being elected a Fellow is an honor and welcome recognition for any individual, but why do we, the ACA, The Structural Science Society, promote this type of recognition?
