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Madeleine Jacobs
Editor-in-chief
Rudy Baum
Managing editor
We are pleased to add our congratulations to those of the officers of the American Chemical Society on the occasion of ACS's 125th Anniversary. As editors of Chemical & Engineering News, the society's official organ, and as ACS members ourselves, we are proud of the society's many accomplishments.
In this special issue of C&EN, you will find greetings from the ACS officers and a sweeping account of the society's history by Kenneth M. Reese, Newscripts editor and a former C&EN managing editor. Senior Editor Stephen Ritter contributed to this history as well. You will also find a description of ACS today by ACS News Editor Linda Raber.
But the heart of this anniversary issue is a feature we have titled "New Voices in Chemistry." It consists of 170 essays by 171 chemists, chemical engineers, and business leaders 45 years old and younger. There are, of course, tens of thousands of young chemists in the U.S. alone who fit the bill "45 and under." So how did we select them
We admit that we chose our essayists in a rather idiosyncratic way. We asked C&EN staff for suggestions. We invited the CEOs of leading chemical, pharmaceutical, and biotechnology companies to nominate one of their young stars. We solicited ideas from the Camille & Henry Dreyfus Foundation and the C&EN Advisory Board. We selected a few outstanding government laboratories and asked their heads for nominees. We invited people who had won major awards. We focused primarily on men and women working in the U.S. or those outside the U.S. who have been involved with ACS.
The essayists were asked to write no more than 750 words about whatever was nearest and dearest to them, as long as the topic focused on the future of the chemical enterprise. The essays have several major themes, among them: how chemistry should be taught to make it exciting; challenges for chemistry presented by the human genome; chemistry's interfaces with physics, biology, materials science, and computational science; and the demands of running a chemical, pharmaceutical, or biotechnology company in a highly competitive, ever-changing environment. These essays are not meant to be read in one sitting, but rather in small installments, so that you can savor the thoughtfulness with which each was written.
Many people contributed to this special issue. In addition to those mentioned, special thanks go to Mariana Ochs and Jennifer Altemus of modesign, New York City; C&EN Art Director Robin Braverman and Assistant Art Director Nathan Becker; Assistant Editor Susan Morrissey for shepherding all the essays to completion; News Editor Janice Long; numerous C&EN staff members who helped edit the essays; Assistant Managing Editor for Editing & Production Robin Giroux and her staff, Associate Editors Janet Dodd and Arlene Goldberg-Gist, and Assistant Editors Deanna Miller and Amanda Yarnell; composition specialists Meltem Akbasli, Renee Schlattman, and Aaron Silverstein; imaging specialist Steve Lovasz; copy editors Kelley Carpenter, Pamela Angulo, and Eileen Zagone; and Brown Printing. The entire issue is available to the general public on our website; for that, we thank C&EN Online staff Melody Voith and Luis Carrillo. We also want to thank C&EN's global advertising sales force, Centcom, with special kudos to Executive Vice President Ben Jones, Chemical Publications Sales Manager Ken Carroll, and European Sales Director Skip Mongon.
In 170 essays, it is difficult to single out a few sentences that capture the flavor of this keepsake issue, but we have done so nonetheless and placed one as our Quote of the Week on the table of contents. This is from the essay by chemistry professor David Hansen at the Amherst College, Amherst. Hansen writes: "Chemistry enthralls, then, by the sweep of its endeavors and by its relentless expansion into new arenas. ... Given its 125 years of exemplary leadership, the American Chemical Society will undoubtedly continue to play a pivotal role in fostering the explorations of chemists."
We hope you will read this issue and, like Hansen, come away with renewed pride in the chemical enterprise and your American Chemical Society.
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