On Book Prizes

This is the third in an ongoing series of articles entitled ENDPIECE. The idea behind this series is to have a place where the Editor-in-Chief of the journal SILICON can reflect on some aspects of silicon (Si) the element and on some aspects of its applications in the modern world. Hopefully, the collection of articles will build and it will show just how broad the field of silicon-based materials and silicon-based technologies is. Indeed this broadness is reflected in the growing content of the journal SILICON since its introduction in 2009. While there are (and have been) many successful silicon chemistry symposia held around the world, in the mid 1990s a group of us felt that a symposium was much needed where the focus would be on materials and systems that contained the siloxane bond (Si-0). We now believe that the evidence strongly supports our position on this matter. The Silicones and Silicone-Modified Materials symposia have typically run for four full days of oral presentations and an evening (or an afternoon) of poster presentations at various American Chemical Society national meetings since 1998. At the symposia, the publisher Springer have kindly given book prizes to the students with the best poster presentations. Students from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, MA, USA and from the Texas A&M University, TX, USA have been the awardees to date and are recognized herein.