E-Archive

VOL. 11 March ISSUE YEAR 2010

Interview

in Vol. 11 - March Issue - Year 2010
Executive Committee Changes For 2010
Robert Singer (left) receives his plaque from Bill Clyne

Robert Singer (left) receives his plaque from Bill Clyne

The plaque presented to Sybrand van der Zwaag

The plaque presented to Sybrand van der Zwaag

Juan de Damborenea

Juan de Damborenea

Margarethe Hofmann

Margarethe Hofmann

FEMS is administered by an Executive Committee which is made up of the President, the Immediate Past-President, the Vice-President, the Honorary Treasurer, and up to eight members elected by the General Assembly. Each member is normally elected for a period of two years and can be re-elected for a further period of two years. In exceptional circumstances, members may be re-elected for a third term of two years. The Executive Committee is responsible for the implementation of decisions of the General Assembly and meets as often as necessary to carry out its responsibilities effectively (usually two or three times each year).
On 1 January 2009, Pedro Portella of the Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing, Berlin, succeeded Bill Clyne as FEMS President and  Ehrenfried Zschech of the Fraunhofer Institute for Nondestructive Testing, Dresden became FEMS Vice-President.
Two distinguished members of the Executive Committee completed their final terms of office at the end of 2009.  They were Robert Singer who had represented Deutsche Gesellschaft für Materialkunde (DGM), Germany, since 2003, serving as FEMS President in 2006-2007, and Sybrand van der Zwaag who had represented Bond voor Materialenkennis (BvM), The Netherlands, since 2004, serving as FEMS Vice-President in 2008-2009. Both were given a good send-off by their colleagues at a special dinner in Glasgow on 9 September 2009, during which they were presented with commemorative glass plaques by Bill Clyne, then FEMS President.

In recognition of his outstanding contribution to FEMS over the past seven years, Robert Singer has been appointed as an Honorary Member of the Federation and will continue to represent it on the European Materials Forum.

New Appointments to the FEMS EC

At the FEMS General Assembly in Glasgow on 10 September 2009, two new Executive Officers were elected to the FEMS Executive Committee as successors to Robert Singer and Sybrand van der Zwaag. These are Juan de Damborenea, who was nominated by Sociedad Española de Materiales (SOCIEMAT), Spain, and Margarethe Hofmann, the nominee of the Swiss Association for Materials Science and Technology (SVMT).

Juan de Damboreanea

Juan José de Damborenea was born in Bilbao, Spain, in 1958. He holds a BSc in Welding and an MSc in Metallurgy and in 1985 was awarded his PhD in Chemistry by Universidad Complutense, Madrid. He has spent time as a postdoctoral fellow and Academic Visitor of Imperial College, London and between 1996 and 2008 was Head of the Corrosion and Protection Department at the National Centre for Metallurgical Research (CENIM/CSIC), becoming a Research Professor in 2007. His main research interests are surface engineering for corrosion and wear resistance and electrochemical methods in corrosion research. He has been involved in a number of important funded research projects (national and European) as well as in cooperative actions with non-developed countries, always related to corrosion and surface modification of metallic materials. He has authored or co-authored more than 100 publications in national and international journals, chapters of scientific books and congresses and is editor of Revista de Metalurgia. Since May 2008 he has been Deputy Vice-President of Scientific-Technical Areas at the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), with responsibility for the coordination of its eight research areas.

Margarethe Hofmann

Margarethe Hofmann-Amtenbrink began her career as an Assistant for Metallography in industry. She then studied foundry technology and materials science and received her PhD in materials science at the Max Planck Institute Stuttgart and Technical University Berlin, Germany. In 1987 she started her own business (Mat Search Consulting Hofmann) in Switzerland. Among various consulting activities for industry she became CEO of the Swiss governmental Priority Program for Materials (PPM 1991-1994), CEO of the Swiss Association for Materials Technology, SVMT and President until 2007, and is still CEO of the Foundation for Rare Metals, ESM. For about 10 years she has been involved in research projects on nanoparticles for biomedical applications and initiated two European Research Projects (FP5 and FP7) for which she has been the scientific coordinator. For 5 years she has organised the technical sessions of the conference NanoEurope in Switzerland. She belongs to several Advisory Boards in Germany and is an individual member and member of the Scientific Board of the Swiss Academy for Engineering Sciences, SATW, Switzerland. M. Hofmann-Amtenbrink has published several reports in the field of technology assessment and innovation and has published book chapters and articles in the field of biomedical nanotechnology.

For Information contact:
Dr Paul McIntyre, FEMS Secretary
E-mail: dr_paul_mcintyre@compuserve.com