A Materials Research Society (USA) Fall Meeting Symposium entitled ‘Materials Issues in Solid Freeforming’ with Dr. Suwan Jayasinghe as the lead organiser was held on 29-30 November 2004 in Boston, USA. The symposium started with a special address by Professor John Fenn Nobel Laureate (Chemistry). Several sessions followed with invited papers from a host of leading researchers. The symposium was sponsored by the US Army Research Office and EPSRC.

In the session on Solid Freeforming, Professor Mohan Edirisinghe (QMUL), Professor Brian Derby (University of Manchester), Professor Ahmad Safari (Rutgers University, USA) and Professor Luca Iuliano (University of Modena, Italy) presented invited papers on jet-based and other materials forming methods, covering both the nano- and micro-scale. This was followed by a session on 3-D Fabrication & Applications, with invited papers from Professor Joseph Beaman (University of Texas, USA), Professor Emanuel Sachs (MIT, USA) and two invited papers by Professor Yury Gogotsi et al. (Drexel University, USA). The second day started with a session on Processing and Fabrication of Advanced Materials with an invited paper from Dr. Gian Babini and Luca Settineri (Italy), backed up by six other papers. The final session of the symposium was on Electrohydrodynamic Atomization & Applications in which QMUL plays an internationally leading role. In addition to the four papers presented by QMUL (Professor John Stark from Engineering and three others from Materials), invited papers were given by Professor Juan De la Mora (Yale University, USA), Professor Kwang-Leong Choy (University of Nottingham) and Professor Michael Brenner (Harvard University, USA).