Samuel R. Scholes Award Lecture and Events 2025

10:30 am - 11:00 am -  Rededication of Friendship Park, Corner of Pine & State Streets
11:20 am - 12:10 pm - Scholes Lecture, Holmes Auditorium, Harder Hall
12:30 pm - 2:00 pm - Scholes Luncheon, The Knight Club, Powell Campus Center
2:00 pm - 3:00 pm - Glass Science Poster Session, Binns Merrill Hall, Room 244
3:00 pm - 5:00 pm - Reception: Reintroducing the Paul Vickers Gardner Glass Center, (Champagne toast at 4pm) Palladian Room, Binns Merrill Hall, 2nd Floor

REGISTER

Reintroducing The Paul Vickers Gardner Glass Center Palladian Room (BMH 259)

This event is an opportunity to reintroduce the community to the Paul Vickers Gardner Glass Center. The Paul Vickers Gardner Glass Center enhances education in the art and science of glass for artists, scientists, and lovers of glass through the curriculum, workshops, lectures, and archival resources. The reception will celebrate the Center and launch the current exhibition, "The Science of Design: Frederick Carder and Paul Vickers Gardner," curated by Annika Blake-Howland with assistance from students in Matthew Limb's Fall 2024 course "Museum and its Discontents" and Doris Möncke's Spring 2025 course "Natural Glasses."

Rededication of Van Fréchette International Friendship Park

As part of the celebrations of NYSCC’s 125th Anniversary, we will rededicate Van Fréchette International Friendship Park, originally dedicated in 2000 to the “causes of peace, friendship, and cultural understanding” and to international students who “met the challenges of language, culture, and distance to study at Alfred University. The park was named for Professor Van Derck Fréchette, who was associated with Alfred University for more than 50 years as a student, teacher, researcher, and benefactor. He joined the faculty in 1944 and retired in 1987. Fréchette was a world-renowned expert on glass fractography and established the Study Abroad Program at NYSCC. He characterized the exchanges as “relationship(s)...based on long acquaintance, professional respect, and mutual trust.”

Samuel R. Scholes Award Lecture

Efstratios I. Kamitsos, Theoretical and Physical Chemistry Institute, National Hellenic Research Foundation, Athens, Greece 

LECTURE Structure and Ion Dynamics in Melt-Quenched and Ion-Exchanged Glasses

The structure of modified glasses reflects a balance between the needs of the modifier ions to occupy suitable coordination environments (sites) and the chemical versatility of the network former to provide such sites. The knowledge of the complex environments around metal ions is important for understanding the composition dependence of glass properties like ionic transport, viscosity and performance of glass as host material for laser ions. Raman and infrared spectroscopy have been used to probe the network former structure and the sites of the modifier ions, while molecular dynamics and impedance spectroscopy are suitable techniques to study ion dynamics. In this lecture, we will present results on the structure and ion dynamics in metal ion containing borate and silicate glasses. It will be shown that the field strength of the metal ions dictates the chemical equilibria controlling the local network structure and the formation of ion sites in melt-quenched and ion-exchanged glasses.
 
BIOGRAPHY

Dr. Efstratios Kamitsos holds a diploma in Chemistry from the National and Kopodistrian University of Athens (1978), and a Ph.D. in Physical-Inorganic Chemistry from Brown University, USA (1983).

After his military service (04/1984 - 04/1985), he joined the Theoretical and Physical Chemistry Institute of the National Hellenic Research Foundation (NHRF) in Athens where he has held the positions of researcher (04/1985 - 12/2022), Director of the Institute for four terms (10/1997 - 09/2020), and Director and Chairman of the Board of NHRF (03/2012 - 10/2013).

He has served on numerous national and international scientific committees, has been visiting researcher at many universities in Europe and the US, and has established and directed major research programs in spectroscopy and materials science with substantial funding from national and European competitive programs. 

The main focus of Dr. Kamitsos’ research is materials physical chemistry, including synthesis, structure and dynamics of materials ranging from low‑dimensional charge transfer compounds to glassy electrolytes, and the engineering of electrical and optical functionalities by external stimuli like laser irradiation, thermal-poling and ion-exchange.

He has supervised the work of over 40 young scientists and Ph.D. students, and has taught graduate courses in Greece and abroad on Vibrational Spectroscopy and Applications to Materials Science and Cultural Heritage.

He has received many awards and distinctions, noting (i) the Potter Prize in Chemistry for the best Ph.D. thesis, Brown University (1984), (ii) the 2021 Alfred R. Cooper Award by the American Ceramic Society, (iii) Award for Lifelong Achievements in Chemistry by the Association of Greek Chemists (2024), and (iv) was the Honoree of the 10th International Conference on Borate Glasses, Crystals and Melts (Corning, NY, 2023).

His published work includes over 250 papers in peer-reviewed international journals, numerous articles in conference proceedings and 2 international patents. His work has attracted more than 14,000 citations and has h-index=63 (Google Scholar, January 2025).

SAMUEL R. SCHOLES AWARD

Dr. Samuel Ray Scholes served Alfred University and the Alfred community for over 40 years as dean (1946-1948), associate dean (1948 - 1952), head of the Department of Glass Technology, and professor of glass science (1932 - 1946). He established the first glass science program in the United States at the College of Ceramics in 1932. As a scientist devoted to the English language, Dr. Scholes developed the program for teaching technical writing at Alfred University. Dr. Scholes was educated at Ripon College (BA, 1905) and Yale University (PhD, 1911). He was a poet, scholar, and a scientific educator of the highest caliber who believed in glass as the "eye of science, the carrier of light."

For his contributions as a scholar, educator, administrator, and glass scientist, Dr. Scholes was honored by Alfred University with a honorary Doctor of Science degree. His name was also chosen for the Scholes Library of Ceramics, and the Samuel R. Scholes Lecture Series was established in honor of his interest in the history and philosophy of science.

As author of Modern Glass Practice, a highly acclaimed book on glass making, published continuously seven times between 1935 and 1975, Dr. Scholes helped standardize the process of glass making in the United States. He was author of three other books: Glass Industry Handbook, Glass Tank Furnaces, and Opportunities in Ceramics.

During his 19 years in the glass industry, he helped to develop automatic manufacture and general control of raw materials and standardization. He held patents for development of an improved glass-melting pot; a method of stirring optical glass; and extraction of potash from feldspar.

"...let us...each do our part in seeing that the materials inventions of our age are made to serve the high needs and destinies of the race..." -Samuel R. Scholes.