The Matter of Your Degree

A recent discussion on SOR group at LinkedIn is an interesting follow up to some of the posts [1,2] I've put up on rheological backgrounds.  Randy Byrne of Malvern Instruments asked which background was best for understanding rheological properties of all materials.  My background in polymer physics has served me well in jobs in materials science, instrument sales, and the food industry. 
Also, in this case, it is worthwhile to see what hiring managers want for rheological jobs [2].  The top choices are Chemistry, Chemical Engineering, Materials Science, and Polymer Science/Engineering.

[1]     Doc Rheo letter on studying food rheology
[2]     Jobs Report review on degree backgrounds

SOR Award Winners

• Eric Shaqfeh will receive the 2011 Bingham Medal.
• Richard Graham will receive the 2011 Metzner Award.

Congratulations to both gentlemen.

2011 SOR Short Course

The 2011 Society of Rheology Short Course will be held October 8-9, 2011 preceding this year's SOR Meeting.  Gerry Fuller, Jan Vermant, and Andy Kraynik will talk about the Rheology of High-Interface Systems.

News from the Rheology Bulletin

Three bullet items from the Rheology Bulletin

• The official SOR report from Santa Fe is on page 4 of the Bulletin.
• The next SOR meeting will be in Cleveland.  As of this posting, the meeting page has not been updated.
• The short course at this fall's meeting will be on the rheology of high-interface systems.  The course will be added to the list once I have an appropriate link.

Where are the Rheology Schools?

Following up on a previous post, I thought a search of academic members of SOR could provide information on where people would go to school to obtain a rheological education.  I performed erformed another search on SOR members, focusing on academics.  Any one who listed an academic title (university universtiy, college, department) was counted as an academic.  The top ten states for academic SOR members are TX, WI, CA, MA, OH, IL, PA, MI, NY, and MN [1,2,3].  (I went to graduate school in Illinois.)  I pooled together the states where there were fewer than 5 academics per state.  States with zero academic SOR members were AK, HI, NE, NH, NM, and VT.

[1]  Postal code abbreviations here.
[2]  Raw data here.
[3]  John has put together a list of polymer-related programs here.
[4]  Update 2/8/2011: Fixed 2 typos.

Where are the Rheology Jobs?

Back in May, the states with multiple industrial rheological job positions were NJ, MA, PA, NY, OH, CA, IN, CT, and DE [1].  I was wondering where the rheological jobs in the United States were and realized some information could be obtained from the Society of Rheology directory [2].  I looked through all 50 states and counted up government and industrial positions.  Some members do not identify their place of employment.  If I recognized that person as a professor, I did not count them; otherwise, I assumed that person had an industrial or government job.  From the data [3], I generated the following chart.

The top ten states for SOR members are OH, TX, NJ, CA, MN, IL, PA, DE, MD, and NY.  VA, MA, MI, WI, NM, and CT all have more than 9 industrial and government members.  The remaining 97 members were divided among 30 states.  (I'm one of two SOR members from Nebraska.)  States with zero industrial or governmental members are IA, ID, LA, ME, MT, ND, NV, and, RI.  (Next post--academic members).




[1]  Postal code abbreviations here.
[2]  SOR members can access the directory.
[3]  Raw numbers used to generate the chart can be found here.
[4]  Update 2/8/2011: Fixed broken link

Rheology Dot ???

• Rheology.org is the website of the Society of Rheology
  
• Rheology.com is owned by Rohm and Haas, which is a subsidiary of Dow.
• It doesn't appear that any other extensions (.edu, .info, etc.) appear to be in use.

Social Network Sites

Two items of note:

• The Society of Rheology has set up a discussion group on LinkedIn.  You must be a member of SOR to join.  So far I've seen discussions on geopolymers and chocolate.
• Anton Paar USA is on Facebook.  I believe that you need to be a customer or prospect to join, as when you search "anton paar" on Facebook, nothing comes up.
  (I tend to use Facebook during my leisure hours, so I rarely log onto the site at work.  Is anyone else using Facebook at work?)

Society of Rheology Membership

It's time for me to renew my membership in the Society of Rheology for 2010.  I would recommend membership for anyone who's interested in the study of rheology.  The cost is only $40 ($25 for students).  Membership includes 6 issues of the Journal of Rheology, 12 issues of Physics Today, and 2 issues of the Rheology Bulletin.
SOR is a small society; I'm only one of two members who live in Nebraska.  According to the online membership guide, the following states have only one member--

• Alaska
• Hawaii
• Idaho
• Nevada
• Vermont

SOR '09 Report #2

In a previous post, I asked for feedback on the industrial roundtable discussion at last month's SOR meeting.  Nicholas Wyatt of the Colorado School of Mines writes:

I made my travel plans specifically to enable me to attend that discussion thinking that it would be a good place to meet some folks from industry. I liked the idea, but I was disappointed with the outcome. The first, and most apparent, problem I found with the discussion was that it was supposed to be an outreach to industry, but the four people on the panel all work in academia (Norm Wagner - University of Delaware, Gerry Fuller - Stanford University, Jeffrey Morris - City College of New York, Daniel Klingenberg - University of Wisconsin). Each of the panel members took a few minutes to discuss the areas of their research that have potential industrial applications. I think this would have been much more helpful and useful if the panel members had been people who work in industry who could share what they do and what impact their research has in the fields they work in. For example, there were several people who attended the meeting from DOW, Proctor and Gamble, CP Kelco, and Halliburton (among others). I think they could have provided a better picture of what it's like to do research in an industrial setting.

If anyone else has any comments on the industrial roundtable, send them along.

Update: Mr. Wyatt's last name was misspelled in the original post.

SOR '09 Report

I attended this year’s Society of Rheology Meeting in Madison, WI last week. It was my first meeting since the 2005 meeting in Lubbock, TX and my first meeting as a representative of ConAgra Foods. Here is a list of this year’s sessions…

1. Biorheology and Rheology in Biological Systems

2. Emulsion, Blends, and Multiphase Systems

3. Non-Newtonian Fluid Mechanics and Stability
4. Gels, Glasses, and Jammed Systems
5. Industrial and Complex Systems Rheology
6. Microrheometry and Microfluidics
7. Molecular Modeling and Simulation in Rheology
8. Self-Assembled Systems and Interfacial Rheology
9. Suspensions and Colloids
10. Polymer Solutions and Melts
11. Viscoplasticity and Soft Solids
12. Local chair PDA: iPhone (minimum memory 16 GB)

Because of my current interests, I concentrated on presentations that discussed food. There were 9 presentations with the word “food” in the abstract, and I was able to attend 8 of them; two talks had a conflict. (This system was flawed; I missed a talk on dough rheology because the authors did not use the word “food” in their abstract.) Generally speaking, the food-related talks discussed extensional techniques, as those techniques can be directly applied to processing, including food processing.

I heard from several people that the Society would like to improve its outreach to industry. They held a roundtable discussion on industrial jobs. Because of my schedule, I was not able to attend. If any readers would like to share their experience, either leave a comment or send me an email. (As shown below, outreaches to industry are not new; the ’99 meeting also had a session on industrial rheology.)
Being a small meeting, the trade show was also small. Exhibitors included Anton Paar, TA Instruments, Malvern Instruments, ATS RheoSystems, and Thermo Haake (all the standard rotational rheometer manufacturers), Formulaction, Brookfield, Stony Brook Scientific, AIP, Xpansion Instruments, and RheoSense Instruments.

(comparisons to older meetings after the jump)

Rheology Research Center

This year's Society of Rheology meeting starts tomorrow in Madison, WI. The University of Wisconsin has a many professors who research different areas of rheology. Some of them have banded together to form the Rheology Research Center. For some rheology-based entertainment, stop by the poetry page to view works by Professors Bird and Lodge.