Dear San Diego ACS Community,

It is with an abundance of both gratitude and humility that Jackie and I take over the position of Chair for our local community. Filling in Christina’s shoes is a tall order, but at least there are two of us! As Christina Vialva steps down, I want to extend immense appreciation for everything she has built up over the past year, and I am excited to continue working with her in a different capacity for 2025.

I joined the ACS a few years ago with the intention of meeting more people in the chemistry community who share similar interests to myself, and to learn more about a world which I was planning to become a part of. I came from an educational background built on arts and literature originally, but over the past near decade of working in biotech, I came to the realization that I wanted to pursue more knowledge in biochemistry. Furthermore, I decided to enroll back in community college and am now in the midst of completing a second degree.

Jackie Trischman, on the other hand, not only serves as the Dean of the College of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics at CSU San Marcos, but also previously served as Chair for our section. She comes back to this position with a wealth of knowledge and experience which is an incredibly useful resource for our community, and I am lucky to have her by my side for my inaugural year.

Key Initiatives For 2025:

1. Diversity and Membership:

One of the focuses during Christina’s term was to bring in more diverse community members and to emphasize that chemistry is truly for everyone. She did this with some amazing events that focused on our younger student community as well as the LGBTQ+ section of scientists in San Diego. We plan to expand and build upon this work in the coming year through the building of specific teams that focus on our Young Chemists and our Women Chemists in San Diego. Jiyue Chen, who holds the position of Chair Elect, will be instrumental in helping to lead and guide these teams to success. We also intend to have many fun events this year that focus on our legacy members to continue and bring value and education to your membership.

2.  Building Stronger Connections:

As I mentioned previously, one of the reasons I was drawn into the ACS from the start was to meet other members in the chemistry community. Since 2020 when COVID came along and forced us all to learn other ways to engage with each other, many people continued to hold onto habits of less in person interaction. While the internet is a great tool that allows more accessibility to a larger audience for any one event, I would like to see us have more in person activities where members can meet face to face and build stronger relationships.

3. Focusing on Health and Innovation:

A key interest for me in the world of biochemistry is the creation of new technologies that allow for synthetic cell growth and even whole organs. While this is something very much on the bleeding edge of science still, I would like to explore topics around the expansion of healthcare technologies. We also have some great events on the horizon that focus on different aspects of health, including mental wellness and even wildfire chemistry which is relevant to the unfortunate real world events occurring just north of San Diego.

This year looks to be full of promise and with a great local section team, we are confident that we can achieve our main objectives and have a great 2025. We are thrilled to kick off January with an exciting presentation by Jennifer Pore, Ph.D. Join us as she delivers her talk titled At the Edge of the Periodic Table: The Chemistry of Superheavy Elements and explores the fascinating world of Superheavy Elements and how they may be challenging the very foundation of the Periodic Table. Don't miss this insightful talk!" Register here.

I look forward to providing updates on our key initiatives and revealing more interesting events. Also, we have the ACS Spring 2025 coming to us in March! I hope you all feel the same excitement that we all do.

Once again, I would like to thank you all for your confidence in our team. Here is to a fun and exciting 2025!

Sincerely,

Max Mahler and Jackie Trischman,
San Diego ACS Local Section Co-Chairs