Published on: 14-03-2016
Dear TIAFT Friends,
Easter is coming soon and if you celebrate it I hope you have a wonderful Easter holiday with your family.
Last month, I attended the AAFS 68th Annual Scientific Meeting in Las Vegas, Nevada.
There was good news at the meeting. Our treasurer, Robert Kronstrand received Ray Abermethy Award on Wednesday, February 24 at the section of Toxicology. I was very happy for him and proud of him. Please congratulate him for his achievement.
It was fantastic to meet many American TIAFT and SOFT members as well as our friends from all over the world. I was especially delighted to meet Marilyn at the international members’ reception. As usual, she was very popular and it was very hard for me to catch her for a chat. It was great to see her taking an active role in the field of Forensic Science after her retirement. For your information her retirement ceremony has been rescheduled to April 9th. Hopefully many of you will be able to attend to congratulate her in person.
I hope you all received the first issue of bulletin and enjoyed reading the articles and TIAFT news as much as I did. On behalf of TIAFT, I would like to thank Dimitri and Jochen for their great effort to make it possible. I also appreciate those who contributed articles including: Wayne Jones, Marciej Bogusz and Dimitri Gerostamoulos.
Regarding the bulletin, Jochen is not able to continue to be an editor. Therefore, we need to recruit a new editor. As you all know, it requires a lot of time and energy, but it’s very important for all of our TIAFT members. I am very grateful to those who are applying for this position. If you are interested in the editor position, please send me your CV and cover letter explaining your employment history by April 30, 2016 (hschung@cnu.ac.kr). In the meantime, Dimitri will take care of producing the second issue of 2016. I am very grateful to him to be in charge of producing the second issue.
Now is the time to start sending abstracts for our meeting in Brisbane to celebrate the year of the Koala. Please remember that the deadline for submitting your abstract is March 28. We still have three more weeks to prepare. I greatly hope many of you send abstracts.
If you want to apply for a travel grant please send your abstract to the organizing committee in Brisbane by March 28 and send me an application by April 30. If you need travel grant information please visit the website where you can obtain information about how to apply. I am looking forward to having many participants from every part of world.
Regarding the regional meetings, we are going to have three meetings this year. The first regional meeting in South Africa will be held on May in Cape Town. Since we don’t have many members in this important region, it will be a great chance for us to promote TIAFT there. Secondly, the location of the 12th regional meeting of Latin America will be changed from Panama to Costa Rica. However, the meeting will be held on the second week of November as planned. Thirdly, Serap Annette Akgur is organizing the second regional meeting in Turkey at WOW Topkapı Palace Antalya from October 30 to November 2, 2016. I hope those who are near Turkey participate the meeting, enjoy the rich culture of Turkey, and spread ideas of Forensic Toxicology throughout the region.
In conclusion, I would like to inform you that I am waiting for the application of method development. Those who are interested in applying for this program from developing countries, please send me an application. It will be a golden opportunity to establish new methods by helping young scientists from developed countries.
I am looking forward to seeing you all in Brisbane.
Sincerely,
Heesun Chung, CBE, Ph.D
President