Professors Judith Poë and Andrew Dicks (St. George campus) co-chaired the IUPAC 23rd International Conference on Chemistry Education which was held July 13-18 in Toronto.

The conference, which had not been held in Canada since 1989, attracted over 450 registrants from 40 countries.  Plenary lecturers included Bassam Shakhashiri of the University of Wisconsin and past president of the American Chemical Society, whose address was highlighted by vibrant demonstrations; University of Toronto Nobel laureate, John Polanyi, who addressed “How Discoveries are Made and Why it Matters|; Hsin-Kai Wu of the National Taiwan Normal University, who presented her research on the use of representations in chemistry teaching; Diane Bunce of the Catholic University of America and recipient of the ACS George C. Pimentel Award for Chemical Education who spoke on the use of teaching technology for research into learning; and Jorge Ibáñez of the Universidad Iberoamericana and founder of the Mexican Green and Microscale Chemistry Center, who described the minimization of energy expenditure in electrochemical systems.  In addition there were 8 keynote speakers distributed over the 26 symposia, 9 hands-on workshops and 10 exhibitors. Other CPS participants in the ICCE were Zeeshan Habeeb, Paul Piunno, Juris Strautmanis and Thottakad Radhakrishnan.