The Department of Chemistry successfully hosted the Boron in the Americas (BORAM XV) conference from June 25th to June 28th at Chernoff Hall and the Chernoff Auditorium.
The biannual BORAM meeting has a history of 30 years and was traditionally held in the United States. The 2016 BORAM is the first one held in Canada with Professor Suning Wang as the organizer, Professor Cathleen Crudden and Professor Victor Snieckus as co-organizers. The BORAM meeting provides a forum for scientists whose research interests involve boron and its compounds to communicate as well as cross-fertilize their discoveries and ideas in boron-related chemistry. BORAM also grants students and postdoctoral researchers the opportunity to discuss their work with faculty and industrial representatives.
The 2016 BORAM meeting was attended by more than 150 participants from different regions of the world including Canada, USA, Germany, UK, France, Japan, China, India, Korea and Mexico, and nearly two thirds of them were students and postdoctoral fellows, making it the biggest BORAM meeting ever! 57 oral and 55 poster presentations were given at the meeting, focusing on the relationship of structures/bonding and reactivity of boron compounds, new synthetic methodologies based on organoboron compounds, and the applications of boron-containing molecules or polymers in catalysis, new advanced materials such as boron-doped graphenes, organic light emitting diodes, organic solar cells, bio-imaging, sensors, medicines and other topics.
The participants enjoyed immensely the high quality presentations given at the meeting, the interactions with top scientists in Boron research, the Thousand Islands boat cruise, the beautiful Queen’s University campus and all that downtown Kingston has to offer. All in all, it is a hugely successful meeting!
