I recently had the opportunity to attend the 7th Latin American Crystallographic Association and 27th Brazilian Crystallographic Association (LACA-ABCr 2025), which was held between October 14-17, 2025, in Fortaleza, Brazil. I was looking forward to this meeting for some time and learning more of research across the structural sciences community in the broader Americas.
CSD Communications is a way to share small molecule crystal structures directly in the Cambridge Structural Database (CSD) without requiring an associated scientific publication.
We are pleased to share that the American Crystallographic Association (ACA) has been invited to participate in a new national initiative — REV UP, led by the American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT) and funded by the AIP Venture Fund.
Applications for the 2026 ACA Summer Course will open in December 2025, and we encourage anyone passionate about crystallography to apply.
We wanted to share a quick update about our presence on the platform X. While the ACA account will remain available, it won’t be actively monitored moving forward. Over the past year, many in the scientific community have moved away from X, and we’ve seen engagement there drop off significantly. Because of this, it’s no longer the best place for us to connect with you.
The beginning of September is always something I look forward to. While it is a soft goodbye to summer, sitting under a tree on a warm fall afternoon with the leaves changing colors and reading something interesting has been something I’ve enjoyed for many years. Perhaps it will be the e-version of RefleXions for me this year :). And of course, for those of us in the academic sector, it is the start of the new fall academic term, with our campuses abuzz with new and returning students. I wish you all the best on the start of autumn, a new semester, and new or ongoing scientific pursuits.
We’re pleased to announce the American Association to Advance Powder Diffraction (AAAPD), a grassroots organization that was formed to be a voice for the powder diffraction community to ensure a bright future for this field.
The 2025 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded jointly to John Clarke (UC Berkeley), Michel H. Devoret (Yale/UC Santa Barbara), and John M. Martinis (UC Santa Barbara) “for the discovery of macroscopic quantum mechanical tunneling and energy quantization in an electric circuit."
The 2025 Nobel Prize in Chemistry has been awarded to Richard Robson, Susumu Kitagawa, and Omar M. Yaghi for the development of metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) — remarkable crystalline materials that are transforming how we capture, store, and use molecules.
The crystallographic community mourns the loss of Dr. Benno P. Schoenborn, who passed away on September 23, 2025, in Phoenix, Arizona.
The ACA community mourns the loss of Dr. David Duchamp, who passed away peacefully at home with his family on August 15, 2025, at the age of 85.
We are at a pivotal moment for U.S. structural science. The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) has announced that, effective January 1, 2026, it will withdraw from the International Union of Crystallography (IUCr) and dissolve the U.S. National Committee for Crystallography (USNC/Cr). This action ends a long tradition of national representation and threatens the continuity of U.S. engagement with the global crystallography community.
The American Crystallographic Association proudly recognizes three outstanding scientists whose work is advancing the frontiers of structural science:
The U.S. crystallographic community is undergoing a critical transformation. Since 2018, when the National Science Foundation (NSF) designated crystallography a “mature” field and ceased direct support for the U.S. National Committee for Crystallography (USNC/Cr), the committee has been sustained by private donations, a single NIST grant, and careful budgeting. This patchwork funding model, however, has proven unsustainable. For example, NAS is paid for its services and has not kept pace with basic USNC/Cr management responsibilities, such as updating committee appointments, maintaining its public website or interacting with IUCr.
As I’m writing this column for our summer newsletter, we are rapidly approaching our 75th annual meeting in Lombard, IL. The meeting committee and headquarters team have been working overtime to get everything in order, and to make it a fantastic celebration of our community. I would like to extend a personal pre-emptive thanks to everyone involved, from our Meeting Committee, headquarters team, session chairs, speakers and poster chairs who are all contributing to make our annual meeting one with something for everyone.
The American Crystallographic Association proudly announces the Class of 2025 ACA Fellows—an exceptional group of scientists whose groundbreaking research, impactful teaching, and dedicated service have shaped the field of crystallography and structural science in profound ways. This year’s honorees represent a remarkable spectrum of contributions, from advancing foundational methods and developing revolutionary technologies to championing education, mentoring, and equity across the global scientific community.
