Book excerpt: Three international symposia “Innovative Processing and Synthesis of Ceramics, Glasses and Composites”, “Ceramic Matrix Composites”, and “Microwave Processing of Ceramics” were held during Materials Science & Technology 2009 Conference & Exhibition (MS&T’09), Pittsburgh, PA, October 25-29, 2009. These symposia provided an international forum for scientists, engineers, and technologists to discuss and exchange state-of-the-art ideas, information, and technology on advanced methods and approaches for processing, synthesis and characterization of ceramics, glasses, and composites. A total of 83 papers, including 20 invited talks, were presented in the form of oral and poster presentations. Authors from 19 countries (Austria, Belarus, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, China, Egypt, France, Germany, India, Iran, Italy, Japan, Russia, South Korea, Taiwan, Turkey, U.K., and the United States) participated. The speakers represented universities, industries, and government research laboratories.