WATER & AQUEOUS SOLUTIONS

1996 Conference Program.

Participant Feedback from the 1996 Conference

(Additional comments? Please mail them to us. Thank you!)

1. Outstanding quality of science and presentation and debate. Sunday evening session speakers all went greatly over allotted time, setting a bad precedent for the remainder of the meeting. I emphasize speakers, not discussion (discussions should be allowed to go overtime). To attract students, have senior attendees fees subsidize students (e.g. $600/normal, $375/student, $425/postdoc, or such like. Voluntary?). Every third, fourth, or fifth meeting hold in Europe or California. Try for Newport, RI location.
2. Coordination of the departure time of the bus from the Holiday Inn (Manchester) and the hotel check-out time (11 a.m.) could have been better. Posters - excellent! Informal discussions - excellent! Lectures - fairly mixed. Some of the "ground zero" presentations were far too complex...more like 20,000 feet. Perhaps could have young e.g. PhD or Post Docs give "ground zero" lectures...may help attract more young attendees.
3. The arrangements for the poster session were not conducive to adequate discussion length.
4. Everything was very good. Thank you very much.
5. Ration between simulation work and experimental work is out of balance. Invite more Experimentalists.
6. Very stimulating environment.
7. Excellent conference.
8. Excellent conference. Excellent program.
9. This was a BAD Gordon Conference. Selection of topics was extremely biased. In addition, it did not meet its objectives. There was too much phenomenology sections and less number of sections dealing with the physics. Not enough effort was made to get the best people to speak in a few fields I am aware of. The conference was more towards the interests of the Vice-Chair. I hope he makes sure he does not invite people only in his field next year.
10. Too much time spent on Raman spectroscopy simply because it is the research topic of the chairman. A more balanced selection of topic is desirable.
11. Talks and discussion needs to be held to allotted time, especially prior to poster sessions. Screen speakers a bit more carefully; most were great, but a few were quite bad. Ground-zero talks were excellent for the most part.
12. Time for oral presentations was obviously too short. Tutorials, even special sessions a le Ramon '96 are a very good idea. Also, a possibility to have copies of transparencies speakers used?
13. I liked the format of the poster sessions. It was also nice to see quite a lot of students among the participants! Some suggestions for improvements: There should be mor emphasis on theory. The chairs and the commentators did not always do what they were expected to. Discussions were sometimes dominated by loud individuals.
14. More ground zero. More tutorial. Shorter talks (15 minutes, not 20 minutes). More Aft informed talks and discussion topics.
15. Some talks were technique oriented and not appropriate in my view. They should stress the science. Communication before the meeting was poor - I only found out when a colleague phoned up to say why aren't you coming? Then I only received a program two days before the meeting. The selection of topics was overall very good, but I was not impressed by the fembo second spectroscopy - not clear to me what it told us. For the next meeting, I believe the chair and vice-chair have the night to select those topics which they feel to be important. Biological water must be important - surface water as well. Probably there will be much progress on supercritical water in the next two years.
16. Chemistry and Aqueous Solutions research almost absent. A tutorial on "water" (in particular, for the definition of the main concepts) could be helpful the first day. The chairpersons should introduce the subjects of the speakers just before each talk. Two longer talks and several short communications per session.
17. Good design of unified sessions. Good representation of women on program. Excellent set of posters; well run poster session. The chairman was correct to use conference funds mainly for students.
18. Format can be changed and improved: Eliminate "ground zero" lectures, give more time to speakers who should cover the introduction of their work, and organize a final lecture for each session outlining the "state of the art", open problems and new directions for research. 20. Chairman's role should be "enforced" more (ground-zero should be that). This should include a clear exposition of what measurements can be made with a given experimental technique.
19. It was a very stimulated conference! GRC in 1998. Topic: Supercritical Water Electrolyte Solutions. Interfacial Water, Confined Water, Hydration in Protein, Water Under Extreme Conditions.
20. Having attended a GRC for the first time, I found the format (almost?) Ideal. However, if we want to have more young people, at least the "ground zero" speakers should be required to give more accessible overviews. An alternative would be to organize a series of (voluntary) tutorials for people who want to switch to a different field or just want to know more about a field they are not yet familiar with.
21. Twenty minutes is too short for speakers. Reduce morning talks from four to three. Eliminate summary/concluding speaker. Ground-zero not so well done. Chair needs to choose these session chairs more carefully and instruct them to introduce topics properly. Tuesday night was abysmal. Although it is good to give inexperienced speakers an opportunity, I don't think an entire session should be written off like this. I think the chair should take the responsibility to rehearse speakers when there is a reasonable prior expectation that they will have difficulty communicating. I liked the social atmosphere at this conference, and the informal discussions, and the Raman tutorial. I also liked the international flavor of this meeting.
22. Some lectures were not professional, e.g. too small letters, too much text.
23. The beginning of the conference Sunday evening is not convenient at all for European attendees!
24. This is a strange questionnaire; free form suggestions are more appealing to me. Contact for talks could be organized in a more sensible order; review workshops perhaps on Sunday afternoon, night might be good.
25. Very good conference. Include a section on proton mobility in water. A section on ab-initio stimulations of water structures. Gas phase water clusters. Travel allocation for foreign participants. 28. I was not impressed with the quality of many of the presentations. Some talks did not have a substantial NEW exceptional result or theoretical insight to present. I wondered why they were chosen to speak. The format of this conference - 20 minute talks and 10 minute discussion is not what I'm used to; but very few speakers held to their time limits and the discussion soften ran over too. I suppose that the conference reflects the field, but there were very many simulators and seemingly few Experamentalists. The mini-reviews (ground zero) were helpful sometimes; but they were sometimes used simply to present the speaker's own results. Will I come again? Right now, I say no. I simply did not find the top-level presentations of top-level results that I'm used to at other Gordon Conferences. It's not even close! By the way - the non USA attendance is very high.
26. In short: Too much spectroscopy, too little thermodynamics and statistical mechanics.
27. I was an invited speaker. One good result of having spoken was a sense of intense and useful discussions which have led to a new collaboration and many ideas for new work.
28. Conference more balanced than 1994 (more emphasis on biological "surfaces", spectroscopy, etc). Still not as balanced as it could be. Next time: Some involvement with water in systems of industrial and commercial interest (physics and physical chemistry and spectroscopy and simulation, etc.) (e.g. polymers, emulsions, glasses, clays, etc). Seminars and "special" topics excellent idea, but prepared in advance (e.g. pulsed laser techniques, simulation techniques, QM, polmerability, etc). Very Important: Someone needs to take an overview - to try to pull all data together to see what we have learned up to now and what we do not understand.
29. Ground zero speakers should also give basic theory for the methods of their sessions.
30. For foreigners, this week is the worst because flight charge is most expensive in this week.
31. Anyhow, the conference is a good one.
32. Better distribution of topics. Example: A. High T electrolyte solutions as a main topic. B. Theoretical methods versus traditional experimental approaches. C. Not too much of bio-stuff (not too little either).
33. I would like more Physics: statistical mechanics, models, phase diagrams, etc. for pure water.
34. Very good interaction between participants ext. to the biological field with talks accessible to chemical physicists and physicists. Good organization of the scientific program including some programs of the thesis from pure water to solutions of biological interest. Clear presentation of the computer simulations.
35. Suggestions for 1998 Water GRC: Electrical Double Layer (electrolytes/ions). Organized supra molecular liquids.
36. More presentations on topics related to biological problems.
37. For next meeting: Suggestions for sessions: 1. Supercritical Water and Aqueous Solutions. 2. Intermolecular Potential Model Development. 3. Electrolyte Solutions. Suggestions for speakers/session chairs: 1. Cummings (Peter) 2. Mountain (Ray) 3. Turq (Pierre).
38. Positive: Large number and variety of posters. Negative: Low quality of presentation of some speakers (too long, too less structured). Suggestion: More emphasis on theory, less experimental topics/simulations.
39. There was less intense physics than expected. The biological section did prove thought provoking. Excess of spectroscopy talks.
40. Invited speakers should have more time to present materials. Session chairman should introduce the speaker and his contribution more carefully.
41. Diversity of attendees means level of understanding is not the same for all participants. Afternoon tutorials would help both in the sense of introducing people to new techniques at a level that everyone can be comfortable with and in the sense of dispelling commonly held misconceptions.
42. Topics: Water in the atmosphere, supercritical water, water at extreme conditions (supercooled glassy), more bio-(proteins), less chemistry, less spectroscopy!!, (the session on LR was terrible!).
43. It would help if session chairs asked themselves which aspects of the speakers presentations would be difficult for non-experts. They could perhaps then try to prepare something that would help to lower a few energy barriers.
44. Afternoon "tutorials" okay. Afternoon sessions NO! Greater care in selecting speakers that can communicate clearly.
45. Ground zero discussions should be background only - not a chance to present speaker's work.
46. There was a good balance of topics, which is more useful to me than a concentration on my direct interests - I learned more this way.

Back to the 1998 Gordon Research Conference on Water and Aqueous Solutions Home Page