By Stan Trout | Spontaneous Materials
Last month, I had the distinct pleasure of being an instructor for the IEEE Magnetics Society Summer School. For the past few years, the Magnetics Society has held an annual weeklong summer school in a wide variety of locations around the globe. The summer school was held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil this year.
While we were just a bit late for the World Cup, Rio was a wonderful venue for the event. This is a gorgeous city with many tourist attractions to visit. Our hosts at the Centro Brasileiro de Pesquisas Fisicas (CBPF) were very gracious and made us all feel right at home. There were 86 students in attendance. Nearly all were graduate students, about half were from South and Central America and the rest were evenly distributed between North America, Europe and Asia.
As you might suspect, it was a lot of fun to speak to this group about permanent magnets. Nice because it is particularly rewarding to interact with the young people in our profession. They are a very sharp and enthusiastic group.
In addition, we had several VIP attendees, including Liesl Folks, the President of the IEEE Magnetics Society, and Hans-Benjamin Braun, Jonathan Coker and Tim St. Pierre, three out of the four IEEE Magnetics Society distinguished lecturers for 2014, who all gave their talks to the group.
And in case you’re wondering, I didn’t see Michael Caine or Demi Moore while I was there. 😉
About the Author
Dr. Stan Trout has more than 35 years’ experience in the permanent magnet and rare earth industries. Dr. Trout has a B.S. in Physics from Lafayette College and a Ph.D. in Metallurgy and Materials Science from the University of Pennsylvania. Stan is a contributing columnist for Magnetics Business & Technology magazine. Spontaneous Materials, his consultancy, provides practical solutions in magnetic materials, the rare earths, technical training and technical writing. He can be reached at strout@ieee.org.
