University of Manitoba - Canadian Materials Science Conference: Conference

The history of the Canadian Materials Science Conference properly begins in 1951 when the late T.S. Hutchison, a professor of solid state physics at the Royal Military College, and colleagues in Kingston, the University of Toronto, and the National Research Council began to hold annual meetings at RMC each summer. This quickly became known as the Canadian Metal Physics Conference with the self proclaimed mission of fostering the development in Canada of a then modest research activity in physical metallurgy. The continuing success of the conference, made possible in part by the organizational effort of Wendy Jackson, attracted the interest of metallurgists engaged in chemical processing.In 1976, under the leadership of Professor J.M. Toguri, of the University of Toronto, a metal chemistry component was added to the conference. In 1987, after an incredible 37 continuous years of Conference stewardship Professor Hutchison passed his role to Professor W.T. Thompson. Shortly thereafter, to acknowledge changes which had taken place in the mission of most universities with metallurgical programs, the name of the Conference was changed to the Canadian Materials Science Conference. In 1995, the Metallurgical Society of the CIM was invited to be the sponsor. In the past year, the linkage with that Society has further developed as a result of the relocation of the Editorial Office of the Canadian Metallurgical Quarterly to Kingston. The component of the conference organization formerly undertaken by the Metallurgical Society in Montreal has been moved in its entirety to Kingston, with Michelle Knapp in the secretarial role.

Conference Chairmen

The Canadian Metal Physics Medal was conceived by Professor T.S. Hutchison of the Royal Military College of Canada to recognize achievements in fundamental physics of importance to the understanding of metals as materials. At the time of its first award to Z.S. Basinski in 1977, the advancement of dislocation theory was the very essence of the kind of achievement the award was intended to recognize. Although the Medal since that time has been awarded for excellence in a much broader range of research achievement including even advancement in non metallics, the dislocation motif on the medal has been retained.

The Canadian Metal Chemistry Award was conceived by Professor H. Hancock of the Technical University of Nova Scotia in 1988 to recognize outstanding contributions to metallurgical chemistry as epitomized by the inaugural winner, Professor L.M. Pidgeon of the University of Toronto. Since the time of its inception the award has included recipients from universities, industry and government laboratories engaged in research activities ranging from hydrometallurgy, molten salt chemistry, corrosion and fundamental physical chemistry bearing upon smelting and refining processes.

Text prepared with the assistance of T.S. Hutchison, friend of Keith MacDonald and founder of the Canadian Metal Physics Conference

Awards for best presentations by students, involving a plaque and a modest sum of money have been made available through the generous donations of several organizations over the years. These include: Ortech International, Lakefield Research, and the Canadian Committee on the Strength and Fracture of Materials. Since 1996, the award for best presentation in Materials Physics has been named in honour of T.S. Hutchison, with Maria Lynne Turi as the inaugural winner.