Introducing the ACA: Structural Science Society!

The American Crystallographic Association has a long and incredible history. Formed in 1949 by a merger of the Crystallographic Society of America and the American Society for X-ray and Electron Diffraction, the ACA promotes the study of the arrangement of atoms in matter. Even in the group’s first form, we wanted to offer a "home" for chemists, mineralogists, and physicists and now, more than fifty years later, the ACA is still evolving to welcome all structural science disciplines to the society.

Realizing that the ACA membership was growing to include non-crystallographers practicing structural science, in 2021 ACA Council voted to add “The Structural Science Society” as a tagline to the traditional ACA logo. This change prompted the search for a new logo that would better reflect all scientists determining atomic-scale structure, not only those practicing crystallography and established the ACA Logo Committee.