Eastern States Section - The Combustion Institute

The Eastern States Section of the Combustion Institute, one of the largest sections in the Institute, has been involved in a variety of regional and national activities. The constant binding elements have been the style and spirit of our section meetings.

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Eli Dabora was the Chair of the Eastern Section at our Silver Anniversary and, with the help of Combustion Institute staff members Marge Salomony and Sue Terpack, compiled some history for our section. An updated version of his description is given below, expanding with records of past Executive Committee members and meeting locations.

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The move to create U.S. sectional meetings was initiated in the west and advanced eastward, the Central Section preceding us by two or three annual meetings. In March of 1967, an organizational committee met for the purpose of starting an Eastern Section. Unlike the other two sections, the committee included a Canadian representative to formalize the inclusion of the Eastern Provinces in the Eastern Section. Our Canadian colleagues spun off to be part of a national Canadian section about 20 years ago.

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The first meeting of the section took place in November 1967 under provisional status in Pittsburgh, the site of our parent organization. On July 6th, the Board of Directors of the Combustion Institute approved the formation of the section during the 12th Combustion Symposium in Poitiers, France. The second meeting, held at the University of Massachusetts Amherst in October 1968, was in effect the first one as a formally established section. This meeting had fewer attendees (116), than the first (128), with the numbers of presentations being 25 and 32, respectively.

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These “Fall Technical Meetings” grew and continued annually until 1997, adopting the theme and proceedings-volume name Chemical & Physical Processes in Combustion in 1973. The meeting format has come to be 2-1/2 to three parallel sessions lasting from Monday through Wednesday. There are typically over 110 contributed papers per meeting, plus invited plenary talks that precede each morning and afternoon’s sessions.

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In 1997, we began a new pattern of meetings with the Technical Meeting in the fall of odd-numbered years, the International Symposium in the following summer (even-numbered years), and the Joint Meeting of the US Sections in the following spring (odd-numbered years). Thus, the three meetings for the section members are spread out over a two-year cycle. We hosted the initial Joint Meeting of the US Sections in 1999 at George Washington University, and in the spring of 2005, we hosted the Fourth Joint Meeting at Drexel University.

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Student participation is an important part of the meetings, which we encourage and support. In 1978, we reduced registration fees for students and shortly thereafter initiated a program to provide honoraria to student presenters. Frequently, payment of the honoraria has been facilitated by corporate supporters, to whom we are deeply indebted. Recently, we’ve been able to extend this support to student presenters at the international meetings. The new talent, creativity, and fresh ideas brought to this community by these younger members are invaluable. In return, our community can promise a complex, interdependent, interdisciplinary science that will continue to offer challenges and opportunities.

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In the last twelve years, we have made increasing use of a section Web site to share information. There is potential for a much expanded role, specifically in its use as an educational and information center for combustion-related issues. We hope to join increasingly with other sections to share information with each other and the public.

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Med Colket and Phil Westmoreland June 2006