12th IMCS 2008

Professor Sheikh A. Akbar hosted the 12^th International Meeting on Chemical Sensors (IMCS) held in Columbus, Ohio, USA from July 13-16, 2008. IMCS is held biannually and rotates around the world. IMCS is an interdisciplinary forum that focuses on all aspects of chemical sensors encompassing physics, chemistry, materials science, engineering disciplines and industrial applications.

The Columbus meeting was sponsored by the OSU Office of Research, College of Engineering and College of Mathematical and Physical Sciences; Case Western Reserve University; US Department of Energy/NETL; Sensors Division of the Electrochemical Society; and the IEEE Sensors Council. This year’s meeting was attended by 310 scientists, engineers and company representatives from 30 countries. The meeting held 49 technical sessions representing 210 oral presentations highlighted with 3 plenary, 3 keynote and 34 invited speakers. Additionally, there were 3 poster sessions, one on each day, representing 146 posters.

The topics covered many sensor-related areas including semiconducting, electrochemical, optical and piezo-electric sensors; sensors for health (biosensors), safety and security; sensor arrays, electronic nose and signal processing; mechanism, modeling and simulations; nano-materials and nano-structures; novel approaches to sensing; manufacturing and packaging.

The banquet was held at COSI and featured an exciting and inspiring talk by Professor Lonnie Thompson entitled, “Global Climate Change: A Paleoclimate Perspective from the World's Highest Mountains”.