Given the continuing COVID-19 pandemic with restrictions on travel and group meetings, the organizers of the International Cryocooler Conference (ICC) have decided to move the meeting to December 7-10, 2020, as a totally virtual conference with no on-site attendance using Zoom® as the primary media.To enhance the overall experience, each day will begin with a plenary paper providing an overview in an important area of interest entitled “Cryocooler Recent Progress.” The plenary will be followed by a number of 15-minute oral presentations offered as either Youtube®-style videos or real-time discussions with Zoom-connected speakers. Both the oral and poster papers will be available on the ICC website for viewing by registered attendees at any time through the end of January 2021. As with past ICC conferences, paper manuscripts will be published in Cryocoolers 21 and shipped to paid attendees approximately six months after the conference.

The new ICC format will build upon the 100 abstracts ICC21 authors submitted to the Spring 2020 Call for Papers and a limited number of “Late News” papers covering important recent cryocooler achievements since the call. The venue will also include open-mic sessions for ICC attendees to informally socialize via Zoom. More information and registration is available at https://cryocooler.org

Officers include Sastry Pamidi, ICC21 conference chairman; Nancy Mclean and Chul Han Kim, local organizing committee; Carl Kirkconnel, program chairman; Ron Ross, Jeff Rabb and Saul Miller, conference proceedings co-editors; Ray Radebaugh, registered agent, and Ryan Taylor, treasurer. The ICC21 board of directors includes Pamidi, Florida State University; Mark Zagarola, Creare, (past chairman, ICC20); Dean Johnson, NASA JPL (past chairman, ICC19); Martin Crook, Rutherford Appleton Lab; Wei Dai, Technical Institute of Physics and Chemistry; Lionel Duband, Commissariat a l’Engergie Atomique; Zhihua Gan, Zhejiang University: Kirkconnell, West Coast Solutions (past chair, ICC15); Franklin Miller, University of Wisconsin; Jeff Raab (retired, NGAS, past chairman, ICC17); Ron Ross, NASA JPL (retired, past chair ICC8); Peter Shirron, NASA GSFC; Julien Tanchon, Absolut System SAS; Taylor, Ball Aerospace, and Marcel ter Brake, University of Twente.