MEETING AIChE (American Institute of Chemical Engineers) 2012 Annual Meeting, Oct. 28–Nov. 2 at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center in Pittsburgh. AIChE’s Annual Meeting is a “forum for chemical engineers and related professionals in chemistry and materials science to meet and exchange the latest scientific and technical details of their work,” said Karl Johnson, Ph.D., general arrangements chair for the meeting, and co-director of the Center for Simulation & Modeling at the University of Pittsburgh.
CHALLENGES Pretty much everything is new to Johnson, who is working behind the scenes for the first time after attending AIChE’s annual educational
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forum for many years. “Since I’m local, I help arrange volunteers to assist with the logistics of the sessions, making sure rooms are staffed and attendees well informed,” Johnson said. “The goal is essentially an open exchange of ideas. Sure, you pay to get to the meeting, but it’s free in an academic sense — there are no constraints on the content of one’s talk.” However, there are some physical
constraints that AIChE needs to worry about. “The convention center doesn’t have enough rooms for the number of sessions that we would like to hold — we have a lot of concurrent sessions,” Johnson said. “We’ve had to cut back on what we’d like to offer.” Even so, AIChE will host close to 800 sessions this
‘You pay to get to the meeting, but it’s free in an academic sense — there are no constraints on the content of one’s talk.’