The IUTAM Symposium on Mechanical and Electromagnetic Waves in
Structured Media took place at the University of Sydney from January 18-
22, 1999. It brought together leading researchers from eleven countries
for a week-long meeting, with the aim of providing cross-links between
the com- nities studying related problems involving elastic and
electromagnetic waves in structured materials. After the meeting,
participants were invited to submit articles based on their
presentations, which were refereed and assembled to constitute these
Proceedings. The topics covered here represent areas at the forefront of
research intoelastic and electromagnetic waves. They include effect of
nonlinearity, diffusion and multiple scattering on waves, as well as
asymptotic and numerical techniques. Composite materials are discussed
in depth, with example systems ranging fromdusty plasmas to a
magneto-elastic microstructured system. Also included are studies of
homogenisation, that field which seeks to determine equivalent
homogeneous systems which can give equivalent wave properties to
structured materials, and inverse problems, in which waves are used as a
probe to infer structural details concerning scattering systems. There
are also strong groups of papers on the localization of waves by random
systems, and photonic and phononic band gap materials. These are being
developed by analogue with semiconductors for electrons, and hold out
the promise of enabling designers to control the propagation of waves
through materials in novel ways. We would like to thank the other
members of the Scientific Committee (A.
