Media Contact: Troy Anderson, (858) 822-3075 or tdanderson@ucsd.edu

UCSD PROFESSOR NAMED PRESIDENT OF THE ELECTROCHEMICAL SOCIETY

Jan B. Talbot, professor of chemical engineering and materials science at UC San Diego's Irwin and Joan Jacobs School of Engineering was recently elected president of the Electrochemical Society (ECS). Founded in 1902, it has become the leading society for solid-state and electrochemical science and technology with 8,000 member scientists and engineers in over 75 countries.

Talbot received her B.S. and M.S. in chemical engineering from Pennsylvania State University. She worked in industry for six years as a development engineer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) before returning to graduate school at the University of Minnesota to obtain her Ph.D. in chemical engineering.

In 1986, Talbot joined the Jacobs School's world-class faculty. Her research interests include electrodeposition, electrophoretic deposition of phosphors in the processing of advanced materials, and chemical mechanical polishing.

While at the Jacobs School, Talbot has been instrumental in developing its Chemical Engineering Program, of which she is the director. Currently, the program has affiliated faculty from the mechanical and aerospace engineering, bioengineering, and chemistry departments. The curricula at both the undergraduate and graduate levels are designed to support and foster chemical engineering as a multidisciplinary profession that interfaces engineering and all aspects of basic sciences (physics, chemistry, and biology), and facilitates California's critical biotech and high-tech based economy.

Talbot spent a sabbatical year with the Electrodeposition Group at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), and has served as a member of the World Technology Evaluation Center (WTEC) Former Soviet Union Display Technology Panel and the Department of Energy Advanced Fuel-Cell Commercialization Working Group. Additionally, from 1992-1998, Talbot was the Public Director of the Board of Certified Safety Professionals. She was chair of the first Gordon Research Conference on Electrodeposition in 1996, has served as a consultant to numerous companies, and was editor of the ECS's "Interface" publication from 1995-1998.