Symposium LL, Scientific Basis for Nuclear Waste Management XXXVI, was held November 25-30 at the 2012 MRS Fall Meeting in Boston, Massachusetts. This Symposium continues to set the research agenda in the field of radioactive waste management, charting the development of waste processing, conditioning, packaging and disposal. Symposium XXXVI featured 77 presentations, delivered over four days during the 2012 MRS Fall Meeting, from participants in Australia, Austria, Finland, France, Japan, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and United States of America. Sessions reported on advances in glass and ceramic wasteforms, conditioning of technetium, management of spent nuclear fuel, and geological disposal, plus a special joint session with Symposium HH, on radiation effects in nuclear materials. Each paper provides a snapshot of the exciting recent developments in each of these areas and the international progress toward achieving the safe, timely and cost-effective management and disposal of radioactive wastes.

The 37th International Symposium on the Scientific Basis for Nuclear Waste Management (Materials Research Society Symposium Proceedings Volume 1665) was held in Barcelona (Catalonia, Spain), September 30-October 3, 2013. The symposium was officially opened by Dr. Antoni Gurgui, commissioner of Consejo Seguridad Nuclear (Nuclear Safety Council) in Spain. About 80 attendees from 12 countries listened to 51 presentations and discussed 29 posters during the three and a half days of scientific sessions. The symposium covered the following topics: national and international programs; performance assessment/geological disposal; radionuclide solubility, speciation, sorption and migration; corrosion studies of zircaloy, container and carbon steel; high level waste and ceramic and advanced materials.

The Symposium on the Scientific Basis for Nuclear Waste Manage ment was held in the fall of 1979 in Boston, Massachusetts and was one of a number of symposia included in the Annual Meeting of the Materials Research Society. The thrust of this annual Symposium is unique in the area of waste management. Recognizing that this is an area of great complexity which requires contributions from scien tists with many different backgrounds some of which are not normally associated with nuclear energy, the Materials Research Society pro vides a forum for discussions of a wide range of materials behavior and transport phenomena. As can be seen from the list of references in each paper, the authors draw heavily on contributions associated with professional societies in addition to the Materials Research Society, and this annual meeting encourages the cross-fertilization between disciplines that are essential to an adequate treatment of the problems associated with nuclear waste management. The proceed ings of the first Symposium that was held in 1978 was designated as Volume 1 in this series. The third Symposium is scheduled for 1980. The scope of the 1979 Symposium was guided by the Steering Committee: R. L. Schwoebel, Sandia Laboratories, USA (Chairman) W. Carbiener, Battelle Memorial Institute, Columbus, USA D. Ferguson, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, USA W. Heimerl, DWK, Mol, Belgium W. Lutze, Hahn Meitner Institut, Berlin, W. Germany J. D. Mather, Institute of Geological Sciences, Harwell, UK G. Oertel, Department of Energy, USA R.

The Materials Research Society's Symposium EE, entitled 'Scientific Basis for Nuclear Waste Management XXXVIII', was held from 30 November to 5 December 2014, at the MRS Fall Meeting in Boston, Massachusetts. The symposium discussed the key scientific challenges for the safe and effective management of spent nuclear fuel and radioactive waste and provided an overview of the international research and waste management programs around the world. Waste forms and engineered barrier system properties, interactions between engineered and geological systems, radiation effects, chemistry and transport of radionuclides, and long-term predictions of repository performance were just some of the topics presented at the symposium by internationally renowned speakers and leading researchers in the field. The symposium attracted 85 abstracts. This proceedings volume contains 31 papers from the meeting.