Guest Editor Prof. Edward Yeung Discusses HPLC 2014

The 41st International Symposium on High Performance Liquid Phase Separations – HPLC 2014 – will be held May 10 through May 15, 2014, in New Orleans Louisiana. The venue is the spectacular Hilton New Orleans Riverside. As Chair of the Organizing Committee, I welcome you to join us for this the preeminent meeting that provides one-stop shopping in the field of separation sciences. With the plethora of scientific meetings nowadays, one that consistently draws a thousand people each year must be doing something right! There are plenty of reasons for the success of this series. I have attended every one of these meetings since 1986, hosted HPLC 2000 in Seattle, Washington, and became a member of the permanent scientific committee since 1998. Here are my observations:

Science
Top-notch speakers lead the program by presenting their most recent research results. These are all international leaders in their subfields and are seasoned lecturers, selected based on emerging directions in all aspects of separation sciences. Instead of waiting a year or so for these research results to appear in the primary journals, attendees will get advanced summaries of what is hot and what is not. Even more important are the discussions right after each lecture, or the one-on-one interactions throughout the meeting. This is a rare opportunity to explore those fine details that are often missing in the published articles.
Following the keynote lectures are oral presentations selected from the submitted abstracts. Those have been critically evaluated by members of the scientific committee and found to be novel, timely and of broad interest to the attendees. The duration of the conference and meeting rooms available limit the number of lectures to 150. But, there is more! Other high quality abstracts are organized into poster sessions during the week. Posters are the backbones of scientific meetings. There, one can put in all the details that cannot be accommodated within a 20-minute lecture. Presenters of the posters are assigned times when they can explain their work to the attendees in smaller groups. Outside the assigned time slots, all posters are still available for viewing all week. I invite you to stroll past the posters with a cup of coffee and catch the one or two latest advances that you would have missed completely otherwise.

Technology
The technical exhibits are a key part of the conference. Manufacturers of instruments, software, materials and accessories bring their newest products to create the biggest annual exhibit of its kind. In the New Orleans Hilton hotel, we have contracted sufficient space so that the exhibition is located in the same ballrooms as the posters. Scheduled coffee breaks are held in the common area so attendees will flood the aisles several times a day. There will also be a grand opening event for the exhibits and an evening reception to highlight the vendors. For the manufacturers, they can follow the scientific program and talk to the attendees to determine what the next killer app will be. Specific new products will be introduced at this conference by our major industrial sponsors. They will offer vendor technical seminars to the attendees outside of the scheduled scientific presentations on a first-come-first-served basis. Be sure to sign up early for these!

Education
To the scientists new to the field, this conference series has always been highly valuable. For two days prior to the scientific talks, we offer several short courses taught by distinguished experts in the field. Continuing education is important in any field of employment and we strive to provide exactly that. After these introductory courses, attendees typically find that they can go right into the main scientific lectures and benefit from them. In addition, nine tutorial lectures are scheduled during the week, again taught by experienced scientists in the field. Topics have been chosen to address current issues in the separation sciences, and even accomplished practitioners will find these sessions helpful in their own work. Best of all, they are free to all attendees.
The conference particularly encourages students to attend, since they are the future leaders in the field. In this regards, we have obtained sponsorships for many student travel grants. We also instituted several Best Poster Awards, sponsored by Agilent Technologies, to raise the quality of the poster presentations. Even for people who have presented many posters previously, this is extra incentive to polish up their work and compete for the prizes. Last but not least, we hope that young scientists will show their best research results to everyone at the conference. The Csaba Horvath Young Scientist for 2014 will be selected from this group, based on their lectures.

Networking
With 1,000 attendees of diverse backgrounds, this is the place for professional networking. Sure, you will run into potential employers, employees, customers, sales representatives, and the who’s whos in separation sciences at the sessions, receptions, breaks or just wandering in the venue. Of course, we will have an opening reception on Sunday and a closing reception on Thursday, but don’t forget the vendors reception on Tuesday and the conference banquet on Wednesday. For the latter, we have reserved a private area on board Natchez, the last remaining steamboat on the Mississippi River. Dinner will be accompanied by a live band. The conference is offering a discounted ticket for registered attendees so everyone should be able to participate: all aboard!
The weather forecast is a pleasant week in mid-May for New Orleans. What can be better than mixing new science with old Cajun tradition with your colleagues? There is still time to register for the conference and to share your discoveries at our special late-breaking poster session.

Dr Edward S Yeung biography
Edward Yeung received his A.B. from Cornell University and his Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley. Since then, he has been on the chemistry faculty at Iowa State University, where he is Robert Allen Wright Professor and Distinguished Professor in Liberal Arts and Sciences. His research focuses on measurement systems for biological and material sciences. His expertise includes optical and mass spectroscopies, single cell and single molecule monitoring, and fundamental phenomena in chromatography.
He has received the ACS Division of Analytical Chemistry Award in Chemical Instrumentation, four separate R&D 100 Awards, the Pittsburgh Analytical Chemistry Award, the L. S. Palmer Award, the ACS Fisher Award in Analytical Chemistry, the Frederick Conference on Capillary Electrophoresis Award, the ACS Award in Chromatography, the Eastern Analytical Symposium Award in Separation Science, the Ralph N. Adams Award in Bioanalytical Chemistry, the Golay Award and the Martin Medal.