Asian Crystallographic Association
http://asca.iucr.org
AsCA E-Newsletter (May 2013)
Brief History and Recent Activities of AsCA

AsCA was established at the Perth IUCr Congress in 1987 and is entering a maturephase of its life. The last AsCA meeting was held in Adelaide jointly with theSociety for Crystallographers in Australia and New Zealand (SCANZ) during
December 2-6, 2012, including the Bragg Centennial symposium. The quality of thescience at the recent meetings has been outstanding. AsCA looks forward tofurther growth in keeping with economic developments in the region.

Bragg Centennial Symposium held on 6 December, 2012 in Adelaide

A one-day symposium was held in Adelaide immediately following the AsCA’12 /SCANZ CRYSTAL-28 conference (2-5 December, 2012) to pay tribute to Lawrence
Bragg and his father William Henry Bragg who made pioneering and far reaching
contributions to the development of X-ray crystallography and who spent important
periods of their lives in Adelaide. The specific event being commemorated was thepresentation to the Cambridge Philosophical Society on 11 November 1912, by W.
Lawrence Bragg, of a paper entitled “The Diffraction of Short Electromagnetic
Waves by a Crystal”, which shortly after appeared in the Society’s Proceedings. In
this paper he outlined what we now call Bragg’s Law and also presented the firstcorrect indexing of a diffraction pattern, namely that for zinc blende. A collection ofarticles contributed by speakers at the Bragg Centennial Symposium are freely
accessible at http://journals.iucr.org/a/issues/2013/01/00/issconts.html .
Bragg Symposium Speakers
Front row (l to r): Prof. John
Spence, Prof. Anthony Kelly, Mrs.
Patience Thomson (younger
daughter of Sir Lawrence Bragg),
Dr Steve Wilkins, Prof. BrianMatthews.
Second row: Prof. Gautam
Desiraju, Dr. John Jenkins, Prof.
Anthony Klein, Prof Peter Colman,
Mr. David Thomson.
Back row: Sir Colin Humphreys,
Prof. Tony Cheetham, Prof. Anders
Liljas, Prof. Wayne Hendrickson. 1

Asian Crystallographic Association
http://asca.iucr.org
AsCA E-Newsletter (May 2013)
AsCA’13 will be held in HKUST, Hong Kong, 7-10 December, 2013

We cordially invite you to attend the 2013 Asian Crystallographic Association
Meeting (AsCA’13), which will be held at the Hong Kong University of Science andTechnology (HKUST), Hong Kong. The venue for the meeting has been moved
from Dhaka, Bangladesh. The new dates for the meeting are 7-10 December 2013
(Sat.-Tues). The meeting will cover diverse aspects of crystallographic researchranging from synchrotron and neutrons to materials and life sciences. The earlybird registration fees will be US$400 (Regular) and US$200 (Student/Retired), if
paid before 31 August. Official accommodations for the conference will be nearby
at the Crowne Plaza and Holiday Inn Express hotels. For more details, please
visit the conference website http://asca13.ust.hk (under construction).

Above: HKUST campus, new venue for AsCA’13 and Hong Kong harbour at night

International Year of Crystallography (IYCr) in 2014

In July 2012, the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted the resolutionthat 2014 should be the International Year of Crystallography, 100 years since theaward of the Nobel Prize for the discovery of X-ray diffraction by crystals. For moredetails about IYCr, please visit the website http://iycr2014.org/.
Please contact Prof. Mitchell Guss atmitchellguss@gmail.com about yourplans to celebrate IYCr in 2014.

Other Regional Associate Meetings

ACA2013: 20-24 July 2013, Honolulu, Hawaii. http://www.amercrystalassn.org/.
ECM28: 25-29 August 2013, Warwick, UK. http://ecm28.ecanews.org/.
2

Asian Crystallographic Association
http://asca.iucr.org
AsCA E-Newsletter (May 2013)
Tribute to Steve Wilkins

Steve Wilkins, a prominent Australian crystallographer who contributed much to
AsCA by successfully organizing the Bragg Centennial Symposium in Adelaide on
December 6 2013, passed away in Melbourne on 25 March 2013. He will beremembered by many of us as a dedicated scientist and a likeable person. An
obituary is being written by Andrew Stevenson and Jose Varghese to be publishedin Acta Cryst. Please visit the following tribute web pages for more details.
http://www.synchrotron.org.au/index.php/news/news/steve-wilkins
http://www.csiroalumni.org.au/blogpost/952177/Tributes-to-Steve-Wilkins

AsCA’15 Will be Held in Kolkatta, India

The 13th Conference of AsCA (AsCA’15) will be held in Kolkatta, India toward theend of November 2015. Dr. Pinak Chakrabarti (pinak@bic.boseinst.ernet.in) is theChair of the Local Organizing Committee and Prof. Alice Vrielink(alice.vrielink@uwa.edu.au) is the Chair of the International Program Committee.
Please send your suggestions to them, including microsymposium topics,plenary/key note speakers, chairs/co-chairs, and satellite meetings/workshops. Anumber of travel awards from IUCr and AsCA will be available to support theattendance of young scientists.

AsCA History Recording and Other Businesses

The 25-year history of AsCA is being compiled by Prof. Sydney Hall(sydney.hall@uwa.edu.au) as part of our celebrating IYCr in 2014. Please send
your records to Prof. Hall. The next AsCA Council meeting will be held during theAsCA’13 Hong Kong Conference to decide the venue for the 14th Conference ofAsCA (AsCA’16). The Council will also elect new Executive Committee membersfor 2013-2016. AsCA has recently introduced the Corporate/Affiliation member in its
membership categories (http://asca.iucr.org/about-us). This allows one Councilor toattend the Council meeting. For more information, please contact AsCA
Secretary/Treasurer, Prof. Alice Vrielink (alice.vrielink@uwa.edu.au).

Contributions to AsCA E-Newsletter

AsCA E-Newsletter invites you to contribute. Please send your contributions to3
AsCA Secretary/Treasurer, Prof. Alice Vrielink (alice.vrielink@uwa.edu.au).

AsCA’13 Hong Kong
7-10 December 2013

http://asca13.ust.hk(under construction)

The 12th Conference of the
Asian Crystallographic Association
Venue: The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
Abstract and Registration Deadline: 31 August 2013
Early-bird Registration Fees: Regular US$400 Student US$200