Frequently Asked Questions

Yes.  Due to the state of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States and its impact worldwide on our daily lives, MRS will convene the 2021 MRS Spring Meeting & Exhibit as a fully virtual event.

Virtual volunteer committee meetings are being coordinated with committee chairs and headquarters liaisons for a date and time that will allow committee members to attend the virtual meeting events.

In the lead-up to the 2021 Virtual MRS Spring Meeting & Exhibit, look for special “sneak-peak” presentations, activities and events, along with a final schedule of Meeting symposia. Author presentations will be available for advance viewing on our platform in April.

Registration is available online. Learn more »

All hotel reservations in Seattle, Washington, made through the official MRS Housing Block at www.mrs.org, have been cancelled. No additional cancellation efforts for these hotels are required. If reservations were made outside the MRS official block, individuals will need to cancel their own reservations.

Three different types of presentations will take place at the Meeting:

Fully On Demand: These are the presentations where no live, moderated, scheduled session is planned. They are uploaded to the platform by the authors when instructed.  These talks will be available to all registered attendees 24/7 over the conference dates, continuing through May 31, 2021.  Attendees can communicate via messages with authors within the virtual platform if desired.

Advance Upload for both On Demand viewing and Live Sessions as needed: These are presentations that are pre-recorded/uploaded so that attendees can view 24/7. They also can be used as the presentations during scheduled live programming. They also will be available through May 31. We do encourage fully live participation, but there may be instances where internet or other interruptions may cause technical difficulties such that these advance uploaded talks can be a good backup.

Fully Live, no prerecording or uploads. These are presentations where the presenter attends their scheduled, live session to give their talk. They will be prompted by the Moderator to share their screen and to advance any slides or videos.  These presentations will be recorded automatically as part of the full session by the platform software unless the presenter requests otherwise. Session recordings are typically available on the platform within 12-24 hours.  As with other types of presentations, session recordings will remain available for later on demand viewing through May 31 to registered attendees only.

If you do not wish to make your full presentation available in advance, we recommend that you upload your slides, summary slides, or at minimum, one slide with the title, date and time of your life talk. Slides uploaded must be converted to .MP4 or .MOV format, which protects them from being downloaded by others.  Uploading this in advance helps attendees avoid frustration as they review the agenda and browse talks to plan their itinerary.
 

If you cannot present during the given time but still want to participate in the Meeting and have your talk available on-demand, do not decline your invitation.  Accept your invitation and then contact us separately.  Declined invitations will be withdrawn from the program.  Note that all presenters, whether live or on-demand, must register for the meeting.

The session time indicates the day and time of the symposium’s live session. The presentation time is when you will be speaking live (for the duration indicated) within that session. Time for live Q&A has been built into each presentation time.

MRS’s virtual platform will not permit downloading or sharing of content. MRS’s recording policy, which strictly prohibits any recording of presentations, is in place for this virtual meeting.  Any attendees who do not comply with the MRS recording policy may have their access to meeting content revoked.

MRS journals do allow submission and publication of figures and content that have appeared online as part of a virtual presentation. Standard journal peer-review policies apply to these submitted papers. If you plan to submit to a non-MRS journal, we recommend that you first review that journal’s policies.

Whether you are assigned a fully on-demand presentation or are part of a scheduled live session, we ask all presenters to upload an on-demand presentation.  This provides the maximum exposure for your research AND benefits registered attendees by giving them the:

• Flexibility to select, schedule and/or view presentations of interest according to their own schedule without missing out on live programming.
• Ability to bring relevant questions to the session encouraging an active Q&A between presenters and attendees.
• Ability to go back and view presentations on their own time to refresh their memory.

• A tutorial on adding audio to a PowerPoint can be found here:
  How to Add Voice Over on PowerPoint Slides
• Instructions on how to save your PowerPoint file to an .MP4 or .MOV can be found here:
  Save a presentation as a movie file or MP4
• Complete instructions can also be found on our Presenter Guidelines page

See your invitation or guidelines email that indicates your presentation type. Invited on demand presentations are 20 minutes; contributed on demand presentations are 10 minutes, and poster on demand presentations are 3 minutes.

There is no set format or template for posters, but we recommend breaking up your information into four slides rather than uploading your whole poster onto a single slide. In order for your poster to be considered for a Best Poster Award, you must have an on-demand video uploaded.

Recorded presentations will be uploaded directly to MRS’ virtual platform, Pathable. Registered presenters will received instructions and an access link for uploading by April 5 from virtual@mrs.org. (Please whitelist this email address to ensure that you receive this email.) Presentations must be uploaded by April 9, 2021.

MRS will host two speaker training sessions to further ease any concerns about virtual presentations.  Speakers will receive an invitation soon. Sessions will be held April 7 and April 13 at 10:00 am ET. Presenters will only need to attend one of the two sessions. It will also be recorded and shared for those who are unable to attend.

Exhibit dates and times, rates, promotional opportunities and key benefits are available by visiting the 2021 Virtual MRS Spring Exhibit website, or by contacting Jennifer Ibe at mrs@heiexpo.com.

To receive complimentary access to the virtual exhibit hall only, submit this reservation form before April 12. After April 12, contact Jennifer Ibe at mrs@heiexpo.com for access.

The 2021 MRS Fall Meeting will be a hybrid event, held both online and in Boston, Massachusetts, November 28-December 3, 2021.

The 2022 MRS Spring Meeting will be held in Honolulu, Hawaiʻi, on May 8 – 13, 2022. Note: These Meeting dates DO NOT coincide with Easter week, as has been our long-time tradition.