President's Report

29th July 1998

Planning for ANZSMS17 at Thredbo is well in hand. All of the Plenary speakers have accepted our invitation and John Traeger has been invited to present the Morrison Lecture. The first circular in the form of a postcard has gone out and the second circular, which will include registration and a call for contributed papers, is planned for mid-August. A provisional program, together with other Conference details, can be viewed on the Conference Web site.

We had to forego the lecture tour between Conferences by the ANZSMS Lecturer when our first selection, Professor Jim McCloskey from the University of Utah, was unable to accept the invitation due to other commitments. As there was no clear-cut second choice and time was slipping away, the Committee agreed not to proceed with the lecture tour this time around.

I am happy to report that there have been a number of accolades bestowed on ANZSMS members over the past year. At the International Mass Spectrometry Conference in Tampere, Finland in August, Vice President Michael Guilhaus was presented with the prestigious Brunnee Award, the details of which were outlined in my 1997 President's Report. Following the presentation, Michael gave the Award Lecture describing his development of the orthogonal time-of-flight mass spectrometer, which has made such an impact on the commercial market. ANZSMS Committee Member and Webmaster John Traeger gave an invited Keynote Lecture at the Conference, on the use of ESI-MS in Inorganic Chemistry. At a meeting of the International Scientific Committee held during the Conference, during which it was agreed to ratify the establishment of the International Mass Spectrometry Society, Graham Cooks was elected as the first President of the IMSS and I was honoured to be elected Secretary. Information on the IMSS can be found at the Web site (http://www.chem.purdue.edu/imss/).

At the American Society for Mass Spectrometry Conference held in June, Don McGilvery from Monash University shared the award for the "Distinguished Contribution to the art of Mass Spectrometry" for his development of SIMION, the charged particle trajectory simulation program.

A further highlight was the election of Roger Summons, our Public Officer and Committee Member, to Fellowship of the Australian Academy of Science this year. I have already congratulated all of the above people on behalf of the Central Committee and I am sure that all members would wish me to extend their congratulations also.

It has been very heartening also to hear of the success of members in recent years in obtaining funding for the purchase of mass spectrometers and for MS-based research programs. This augers well for the continuation of Australasia's role as a significant contributor to the science of mass spectrometry and for the future of ANZSMS as we move into the next millennium.

Finally, in stepping down from the Presidency, I would like to thank all of the Committee members, past and present, for the help they have given me in setting up and running the Central Committee of ANZSMS Inc. over the past four years. Michael Guilhaus will also be vacating the Vice-Presidency and Kevin Shaw will not be renominating as a Member, both having served in these capacities since the inception of the Central Committee. We leave the Committee knowing that it will be in very capable hands and shall continue to serve the best interests of mass spectrometrists in Australia and New Zealand.


John MacLeod