Club Spotlight: Colorado School of Mines Material Advantage Chapter

At the Colorado School of Mines there are many professional chapters that students can join. The Colorado School of Mines Material Advantage chapter or CSMMAC, (pronounced “c-smack”) is only just one of them.

Material advantage is an umbrella organization of the four major professional societies for people in the metallurgical and materials engineering major. It includes ASM, the materials information society, TMS, the minerals, metals, and materials society, AIST, advanced iron and steel technology, and ACerS, the American Ceramics Society. Material advantage represents the full breadth of the major.

CSMMAC meetings are typically held on the first and third Thursdays of the month. There is almost always guest speaker, a person from industry, or professor who is willing to share his research. And of course there is always free food. President Sarah Holmes told the Oredigger a little bit about the chapter and their current projects. She said, “We have to do an outreach event, so like right now our focus is with middle school students. We are trying to teach them what material science is like by showing them some cool fun little experiments.”

“Another thing that we do to stay involved with the community is go to monthly ASM meetings here in Golden. And as the chair, I give them updates on what we’re doing as a chapter. They usually have a guest speaker who is pretty interesting, and afterwards they give them a pewter award. They started running out so they asked CSMMAC if we would make some for them, and so now we’re doing the casting for that,” Holmes said.

In addition to all of their professional activities, CSMMAC also likes to have fun social events. In the winter there is a party where the whole faculty and department is invited. There, students get the opportunity to interact with professors in a non-classroom environment. According to Holmes, “It’s a lot of fun and generally pretty well attended. It’s a great chance to meet with the faculty, and last year we had a slideshow showing random facts about all the professors you would never guess. For instance one of the teachers owned a comic book store before coming to Mines. I won’t spoil for you who that is though, I guess you’ll have to find out!”

Once a month, CSMMAC has a breakfast club where students and faculty can enjoy food and friends before they start their Friday. CSMMAC truly is an umbrella organization including faculty, undergraduate, graduate, and professional people. For more information about the club or information about how to become a member, contact Sarah Holmes at sholmes@mines.edu.