Contents The 20th in the series of Solid-State Sensors, Actuators, and Microsystems Hilton Head Workshops was scheduled for May 31–June 4, 2020, at the Sonesta Resort on Hilton Head Island, SC, USA. Unfortunately, like most academic conferences in 2020, it was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Hilton Head 2020 Workshop (https://www.hh2020.org/) was designed to continue to represent the science and engineering excellence of the MEMS community while introducing a number of innovations to the structure of this historic meeting. Some of these changes included the workshop becoming an international meeting for the first time while remaining committed to its key mission of excellence in showcasing recent innovative work and offering strong networking opportunities. We would have had new representatives from multiple regions in North America on our Technical Program Committee (TPC) and a strong focus on cultivating the impact of MEMS on global issues and grand challenges (including a full-day short course on “Microsystems Frontiers in the IoT Era”).
For the first time ever, we had scheduled four MEMS invited speakers, each introducing a grand challenge topic (http://www.engineeringchallenges.org/challenges.aspx):
Nick Van Helleputte, Ph.D., imec
Amy E. Herr, Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley; Chan Zuckerberg Biohub
Leslie Field, Ph.D., Ice911 Research; SmallTech Consulting, LLC; Stanford University
Sarah Bergbreiter, Ph.D., Carnegie Mellon University
We also were anticipating an exciting Rump Session with Felice Frankel, the renowned MIT science photographer and research scientist. Felice would have stimulated our thinking and equipped our imaginations to make coherent graphics and images to represent our research.
Most importantly, our workshop had a strong focus on “Health Grand Challenges.” We would have hosted four internationally known experts as our keynote speakers, all from outside the MEMS/Microsystems community:
Thomas A. LaVeist, Ph.D., Tulane University
Catherine Mohr, M.D., Intuitive Surgical Foundation
Pankaj Jay Pasricha, M.D., Johns Hopkins University
Mickael Tanter, Ph.D., Physics for Medicine Paris; INSERM; ESPCI Paris; CNRS; PSL University
These speakers would have emphasized why health grand challenges should be a strong motivating point to get our bright, skilled, talented, and passionate students to work on critically impactful societal causes such as public health, robotics assisted surgery, and gastrointestinal tract (GI) and brain imaging.
Instead, a devastating worldwide health grand challenge led us to cancel the meeting in March and pushed us into a quarantine lifestyle. COVID-19 has caused so much sadness for so many people around the world this year, especially in the USA with over 180,000 people dead as of the end of August, millions jobless, and hundreds of thousands with no proper nutrition/food. There are endless uncertainties for so many—not only because of the pandemic but also because of the many recent incidents leading to civil action for justice and freedom in cities across our country. There is simply so much to comprehend and deal with these days.
In retrospect, the cancellation of our unique meeting seems like a very small dot/setback in our diaries. Despite everything that is going on today, we cannot help but be optimistic for a brighter and better outlook ahead. In our own research and educational activities, we expect grand challenges and causes, especially health grand challenges, to come to the forefront as a driving force. Most importantly, this future will be a balanced representation of our diverse communities and regions. In the future, we hope to see everyone’s voice and life matter.
We cannot wait to meet again on Hilton Head Island in June 2022. We will talk about how determined we all are to change the world for the better so that the next generation of MEMS students, faculty, scientists, and entrepreneurs will be better prepared to address future grand challenges.
As we enthusiastically wait, we have gathered an extended version of what would have gone on at the Hilton Head 2020 Proceeding for this Special Issue of the JOURNAL OF MICRELECTROMECHANICAL SYSTEMS (JMEMS). In this Special Proceeding, two categories of papers are included:
A total of 69 full JMEMS papers that are extended versions of the papers accepted by the TPC members when they met in person in February 2020; and
Another 18 JMEMS letters that are late news submissions to the Hilton Head Workshop, which highlight the most recent achievements in the field. All papers have been through a rigorous peer-review process according to IEEE Journal Practices.
Thank you to all the contributing authors for your hard work, especially our talented students and postdoctoral associates. This IEEE JMEMS Special Proceeding for the Hilton Head 2020 Workshop was put together over a period of two and half months and with tremendous help from our dedicated TPC members for the Hilton Head 2020 Workshop and select colleagues in our MEMS community as external reviewers. It is a great archival representation of our creative research. A special thanks to Professor Gianluca Piazza, IEEE JMEMS Chief Editor, and his staff, Ms. Rosemary Schreiber, for their significant commitment and assistance throughout this whole process. Finally, thanks to the Transducer Research Foundation (transducer-research-foundation.org) for its commitment and continuous leadership and to PMMI for its significant assistance and support of our technical conferences.
The Hilton Head 2020 Workshop Technical Program Committee (TPC) Meeting, Friday January 24, 2020, San Diego, California USA Top Row (left to right): Dr. Robert “Chris” Roberts, Dr. Roya Maboudian, Dr. Matthew Hopcroft, Dr. Jason Gorman, Dr. Matteo Rinaldi, Dr. Roozbeh Tabrizian, Dr. Luke Beardslee, Dr. Nima Ghalichechian, Dr. Sam Emaminejad, and Dr. Zhengzheng Wu. Bottom Row (left to right): Dr. Behraad Bahreyni, Dr. John Foster, Dr. Ryan Sochol, Dr. Mina Rais-Zadeh, Dr. Reza Ghodssi, Dr. Jenna F. Chan, Dr. Kristen Dorsey, Dr. Mehrnaz Motiee, Dr. A. Faith Sarioglu, Dr. Raviv Perahia, and Dr. Alireza Modafe.