News

Highlights From 2021 UFFC-S Symposia

4 years 7 months ago
Share on:

IEEE 2021 ISAF-ISIF-PFM Joint Conference
The IEEE ISAF-IFIS-PFM 2021 Joint Conference was held virtually from 16 May to 21 May. Over 700 people registered for the conference, more than what was expected based on previous regular in-person meetings, and 100 people registered for the tutorials. The registered attendees contributed to more than 160,000 “pageviews” in total during the week of the conference! The virtual platform will be available until 16 June so that the attendees can continue searching and watching presentations of interest and discuss with the authors using the “conversation” tab.

Highlights

The conference offered more than 700 papers, including the plenaries and tutorials, by speakers from more than 40 countries with pre-recorded videos through the on-demand virtual platform. This year’s conference initiated the Ferroelectric Young Investigator Program and had more than 60 invited early-career speakers. These presentations were well received with many of them leading to ongoing discussions in the virtual platform. In addition to asynchronous presentations, several live events were held via Zoom, including:

  • The plenary sessions with live Q&A
  • A panel discussion on the 100th anniversary of the first ferroelectric’s publication
  • A memorial session for Professor Pim Groen
  • The ferroelectrics awards ceremony
  • The student contest awards ceremony
  • Live Q&A sessions for tutorials
  • A UFFC-S sponsored panel discussion on  Women in Engineering (WIE)
  • A panel discussion to meet with the EiC of T-UFFC
  • The student pitch competition and
  • Student networking events (Gather.town)
  • As well as the closing ceremony

IEEE UFFC-S 2021 EFTF-IFCS Symposium
The IEEE 2021 EFTF-IFCS joint Conference was held virtually from 7 July to 17 July.

Conference organizers employed a dual virtual environment to foster the higher degree of interaction that is characteristic of in-person conferences. Attendees used the combined virtual platform of CONFLUX to access talks and Gather.town to engage with other attendees during live sessions, which included plenaries, award ceremonies, posters, and exhibit sessions. The live sessions were spread over three broad time zones (North America, Europe, and Asia) for global accessibility.

IEEE UFFC-S 2021 IUS Symposium
The 2021 IEEE International Ultrasonics Symposium was held from 11 September to 16 September.

Over 1,900 attendees from 40+ countries registered for the online symposium. The event opened with a Plenary talk by Katherine Ferrara, and there were technical lectures and poster sessions held in parallel each day. The program also included industry panels, student events, Women in Engineering, invited speakers, awards, patron webinars, and more.

IUS utilized the CONFlux virtual platform for program content such as pre-recorded videos and slides, and Gather.Town was incorporated to increase discussion and networking among the attendees. Registrants were able to access the recorded sessions up to 4 weeks after IUS concluded.

IEEE UFFC-S 2021 LAUS Symposium
The 2021 IEEE UFFC-S Latin America Ultrasonics Symposium (LAUS 2021) was virtually held on 4-5 October, with a student competition session held separately one day before the event. The event aimed to reinforce existing networks and promote emerging opportunities to the ultrasonics and acoustics community in Latin America in connection with the rest of the world. The UFFC-S offered complimentary memberships to registrants from Low-to-Middle-Income countries to continue supporting the region.  
 
More than 140 registrants from all over the world (including Africa, Asia, Europe, and North America) attended more than 80 virtual talks and one poster session. The conference was a genuine opportunity to showcase the ultrasonic research conducted in Latin America, its regional and international collaborations. A unique feature was having pre-recorded presentations in the regional native languages while simultaneously providing English, Spanish and Portuguese subtitles. The virtual platform will remain available until 5 November so that the attendees can continue searching and watching presentations of interest. Accepted papers may be submitted for inclusion into the IEEE Xplore platform.
 
Highlights
The conference offered more than 80 presentations, joint keynote talks by distinguished lectures, one funding panel, women in engineering panel, three networking activities, and two student events. In addition to asynchronous presentations with live Q&A sessions, several live events were held via Zoom:

  • Keynote talks open to the public
  • Lecture sessions in English, Spanish and Portuguese with multi-language subtitles
  • Live sessions with Q&A and interpreters in Portuguese and Spanish
  • Women in Engineering (WIE) Panel
  • Networking Events: Meet the Labs and Funding opportunities within LatAm 
  • Student paper awards
  • Student pitch competition 
  • Poster session via Zoom-Breakout rooms
  • Happy and Social Hour (Gather.town)
  • 4-page paper submission via IEEE Xplore