US-Middle East Materials Planning Meeting and Workshop

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The sixth workshop in a series of international materials workshops is being planned for the Middle East in 2002. The U.S.-Middle East Materials Workshop is an international workshop dedicated to materials research, education, and technology. The goals of the workshop are to clarify in detail the major materials science issues in the Middle East through plenary sessions and breakout group discussions; further the development of collaboration via the establishment of a Materials World Net; and strengthen the relationships between the participants and their colleagues. To these ends, the organizing committee plans to invite approximately 20 participants from the U.S., 40 from the Middle East, and 15 government officials from various countries. Previous NSF sponsored materials workshops held in the NAFTA countries, Europe, Latin America, Asia, and Africa have consistently expressed the desire to establish a Materials World Net, which would link materials scientists and engineers around the world by providing them with access to comprehensive databases and collaborative research and education programs.There is evidence to support the conclusion that the World Net is also desirable among researchers in the Middle East. The principal organizer (PI) of the workshop, Professor R.P.H. Chang at Northwestern University, will work together with the co-organizer Dr. Albert Narath from the U.S. and an organizing committee (OC), with members drawn from Egypt, Jordan, Turkey, Israel and additional Arab countries. Those parties will come together at a planning meeting in Turkey in late 2001. Over the course of two days, the group will determine an appropriate location, time, speakers, topics, and an agenda for the workshop to be held the following year. The planning meeting will serve as the beginning of a dialogue among the organizing committee members during the next year. The culmination of the planning will be a workshop in 2002 focused on materials research, education, and specialty topics that the planning meeting participants will have identified.%%% Previous NSF co-sponsored international workshops have involved NAFTA countries (1995), European countries (1996), Pan-American countries (1998), Asian Pacific countries (1998), and Africa (2000). All of these workshops shared the common goal of fostering greater international cooperation and collaboration in the broad field of materials research. Topics which are presumably important to the region include corrosion, thin films, concrete, minerals, petroleum and natural gas, and polymers. The participants will be asked to make recommendations in each area and devote special attention to the development of virtual institutes as a vehicle for furthering cooperation. The U.S.-Middle East Materials Workshop is being jointly supported by the Division of Materials Research, the Office of Multidisciplinary Affairs, the International Division, and the Division of Chemical and the Division of Chemical and Transport Systems.