Welcome to the Special Topics Section dedicated to the 2016 Holm Conference on Electrical Contacts. This special section contains eight high-quality papers that comprehensively describe the state of the art and potential future directions for topics of great interest to our readers. The Editor-in-Chief (EIC), in consultation with the other EICs, Associate Editors (AEs), and domain experts, selects the topics for the special sections, and a Guest Editor or AE (GE/AE), who is a leading expert in the technical area, then directs the solicitation and peer review of the papers. In cases where the GE/AE is also an author, the EIC is responsible for the peer review to avoid any real or perceived conflicts of interest.