Incoming President's Message
by José L.F. Freire, SEM President

The Mission Statement of the Society for Experimental Mechanics states that SEM is composed of international members committed to the application, research, development, education, and active promotion of experimental methods to: i) increase the knowledge of physical phenomena and ii) further the understanding of the behavior of materials, structures and systems; and iii) provide the necessary physical basis and verification for analytical and computational approaches to the development of engineering solutions.

In fact, through its six decades of existence, SEM has been the home of members who have explored new frontiers in experimental mechanics. Some of the areas where significant contributions have been made by SEM members include: developing new optical techniques for strain analysis, modal analysis, micro and nano-mechanics and, bio-inspired materials, to mention just a few.

The notion of SEM being a professional society where members get together in a friendly atmosphere to discuss and develop science comes from its birth. The phrase “The Friendly Society” is a part of our culture. Throughout our history one of the intrinsic characteristics of SEM's members has been the spirit of pioneering research and development of new experimental techniques and new design and analysis procedures. Early volumes of “The Proceedings of SESA” are filled with delightful pages describing innovations related to techniques such as the application of the electrical resistance strain gages, photoelasticity, and the investigation of fatigue, impact and high temperature damage mechanisms.

Today, we can say that SEM is a reference society in the field of Experimental Mechanics not only in the US but also Worldwide.

But this new century has some brings challenges for SEM that can be described by two different although interconnected issues. The first issue is the immense power that a single individual may exert in any field (social or technical) by employing very sophisticated, easily accessible and relatively inexpensive tools. The second issue is related to the capacity to rapidly disseminate striking results that is supported by today's advances in communication and data transportation. The association of these two issues gives a single individual or a small group the ability to modify and even change very rapidly the way of life or fields of interest of large groups, with the consequence of changing the focus on development and research priorities.

To maintain its leading position in this rapidly moving world SEM needs to develop new ways for continuing to serve the membership with the best updated resources a professional society can offer. How can we achieve that? The present world asks for a light, agile, and modern Society, able to react quickly to the rapid changes, taking advantage of what is new and positive and, at the same time, insulated against the negative effects arising from unexpected technical, social, and financial events.

Having being a long time member of SEM and having served on the Executive Board as a member at large and recently as an Officer, I have had time to come to know my colleagues and predecessors, to learn their goals and to observe their actions and achievements. Following them, it is clear to me that originality and innovation in setting up goals for my year as President is a very difficult, if not impossible, task. Therefore, while my goals may not be exactly original, they are soundly based upon the last five sets of Presidential goals.

As the incoming President, I will focus on four of goals while keeping in mind the new challenges of the present world and attempting to correctly interpret and fulfill the needs of our Experimental Mechanics community and membership. These four goals are:

1. Strengthen and expand US and international membership.
2. Improve and expand services to our membership.
3. Update the SEM Organization Handbook.
4. Continue the process of strengthening SEM financial health.

The key words are: membership, services, financial health. The actions are: strengthen, improve, expand, update. This is not an easy task.

In the next five issues of Experimental Techniques I will use this column to report the short and long term activities I will be implementing in order to achieve these goals. Needless to say, I will not be working alone. I am sure that the Executive Board, Technical Divisions, Headquarters staff, the entire worldwide Experimental Mechanics community and, especially SEM members, will help me to make our friendly Society stronger and more able to accomplish our Mission .

José Freire