Awards at IFAAP 2018

During the IFAAP 2018 Conference Banquet, the IEEE UFFC Society Awards and Recognition for Ferroelectrics were presented by Geoff Brennecka (Awards Chair for Ferroelectrics).

• Firstly, the audience congratulated two new 2018 IEEE Fellows: Dr. Sergei Kalinin (Oak Ridge National Laboratory, USA) for “leadership in piezoresponse force microscopy for nanoscale imaging”, and Dr. L. Scott Smith (GE Global Research, USA) for “contributions to ultrasound transducer technology for medical imaging”.
• The IEEE UFFC Distinguished Lecturer 2018 distinction was given to Prof. Kenji Uchino of Pennsylvania State University, USA. He can be invited by research groups worldwide until June 2019 to present lectures on piezoelectric materials and devices. Multiple topics can be chosen from his presentation portfolio.

After a short introduction on how the Awardees for Ferroelectrics are selected, Geoff Brennecka announced the 2018 recipients:

• The Young Investigator Award was bestowed upon Prof. Tadej Rojac (Institute Jozef Stefan, Slovenia) for his pioneering work on processing of chemically complex ferroelectric ceramics.
• The Ferroelectrics Recognition Award, which is given to award honors members of the Society for outstanding achievements in their scientific work as well as in promoting the ferroelectrics community, was awarded to Prof. Satoshi Wada (University of Yamanashi, Japan) for his enduring work on multi-scale engineering of high permittivity and/or high strain materials.
• The IEEE Robert E. Newnham Ferroelectrics Award, named in honor of Prof. Robert E. Newnham (1929-2009) is given to investigators that have contributed significantly to the understanding of structure-property relations in dielectric, piezoelectric and ferroic materials. The 2018 award went to Prof. Dragan Damjanovic (EPFL, Switzerland), for his seminal contributions to the understanding of domains and structure-property relationships in ferroic materials.

During the awards ceremony the prizes for the Poster Contest of the IFAAP 2018 Conference were also announced. The first prize went to Ms. Kathleen Coleman (Pennsylvania State University, USA), for her poster entitled “Influence of Stresses on Properties of Piezoelectric Thin Film Devices”, by K. Coleman, J. Walker and S. Trolier-McKinstry.

Finally, the ceremony was concluded by an announcement of the next ISAF 2019 Conference which will be held in the beautiful alpine scenery of Lausanne, Switzerland! The Conference will be organized at the EPFL campus with General Chair Prof. Paul Muralt and Technical Chair Prof. Dragan Damjanovic. It will be again a joint conference, including the ISAF, the International Conference on Electroceramics (ICE), the European Meeting on Ferroelectricity (EMF), the International Workshop on PiezoMEMS (IWPM), and the Piezoresponse Force Microscopy (PFM) Workshop. The ISAF 2019 is scheduled from July 14^th to July 19^th, 2019.

[caption id="attachment_6072" align="aligncenter" width="605"] Prof. Wada receiving the Ferroelectrics Recognition Award.[/caption]   [caption id="attachment_6073" align="aligncenter" width="604"] Prof. Damjanovic receiving the Robert E. Newnham Award.[/caption]   [caption id="attachment_6074" align="aligncenter" width="569"] Kathleen Coleman receiving the Poster Prize from Prof. Tsurumi.[/caption]

The reports on IFAAP 2018 were authored by Dr. Marco Deluca (Materials Center Leoben Forschung GmbH, Austria). Dr. Takuya Hoshina (Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan), Prof. Michelle Dolgos (Oregon State University, USA), and Mr. Vignaswaran K. Veerapandiyan (Materials Center Leoben Forschung GmbH, Austria) contributed to this report.