Sprouse to Succeed Blume As APS Editor-In-Chief
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October 2006 Volume 15, No. 9 www.aps.org/apsnews Highlights Physics and Technology Forefronts AAPUBLICATPION OF THS E AMERICANNPHYSICAL SEOCIETY • WWW.APS.ORGS /APSNEWS Page 6 Why Are These Men Smiling? Cherry A. Murray Elected New APS Vice President APS members have elected sor of physics at Princeton ber of management positions over Cherry A. Murray, deputy director University, and Elizabeth J. Beise, the years, including department for science and technology at a professor of physics at the head for low temperature physics, Lawrence Livermore National University of Maryland, were elect - department head for condensed mat - Laboratory, as the Society’s next ed as general councilors. ter physics, department head for vice president. Murray will assume Murray is an experimental con - semiconductor physics, and direc - the office of vice president in tor of Bell Lab’s Physical January 2007. Arthur Research Lab. Bienenstock of Stanford In 2000, Murray became University will become presi - vice president for physical dent-elect, and Leo Kadanoff, sciences and then senior vice professor emeritus at the president in 2001. Discover University of Chicago, will Magazine named her one of Photo by Ken Cole serve as APS president for the “50 Most Important 2007, succeeding 2006 APS Women in Science” in 2002. Tom McIlrath, left, has just stepped down after 10 years as APS Treasurer. He has the satis - fied smile of one whose job has been well done and who leaves the APS in fine financial con - President John Hopfield of She has served on the APS dition. Joe Serene, right, is the new APS Treasurer. He's smiling because, in the Treasurer's Princeton University. Cherry A. Murray Philip W. Phillips Executive Board and role of publisher of APS journals, he is looking forward to the challenge of maintaining APS's In other election results, Philip Council, and has been an active leadership position. An interview with Serene appears in this issue on page 7. Phillips, a professor of physics at the densed matter physicist who has member of many APS task forces, University of Illinois at Urbana- worked in surface and low temper - divisions, and forums. In 1989, New Program Extends Open Access Champaign, was selected as the ature physics, light scattering and Murray won the APS Maria Offerings of APS Journals new vice-chair of the APS phase transitions in complex flu - Goeppert-Mayer Award, and in Nominating Committee, which has ids. She received her PhD in physics 2005, the APS George E. Pake The APS is expanding its Open nonetheless insists it still falls under the responsibility of selecting a slate in 1978 from MIT. She first joined Prize. Access (OA) offerings to articles the evolving definition for OA. of candidates each year to run for Bell Labs in 1978 as a member of In her candidate’s statement, published in Physical Review A-E, Thomas McIlrath, the retiring APS APS office. Robert Austin, a profes - the technical staff. She held a num - See ELECTION on page 7 Physical Review Letters, and treasurer, concurs. “The operative Reviews of Modern Physics . The word is ‘access’,” he says. “If there new initiative is called FREE TO are no barriers to the reader access - War Disrupts Mideast Physics Communities READ and can be applied to any ing the material, then the material With the cease-fire in place in some measurements to assess the mer session that must continue, and article or group of articles published is open access.” Lebanon and Israel, physicists in astronomical quality of some pos - an academic year we have to save,” in APS journals dating all the way The advent of electronic pub - those countries have begun return - sible observing sites. “A site which he said. back to 1893. lishing brought about significant ing to work and assessing the toll we used to regularly visit was a While there was no physical Anyone (authors, readers, insti - changes, and APS has adapted well. the war has taken on the physics 2000 m mountain pass. It was damage to the university, “The tutions, funding agencies, etc.) may, The same is true for OA. In fact, community in the affected region. bombed several times in the recent impact on the physics community by paying a one-time fee, make arti - Blume maintains that the APS has When the attacks on Lebanon weeks. Going to a high mountain at is huge in terms of lost work hours cles published in APS journals been a leader in OA for years, with began on July 12, Bassem Sabra, an night and deploying a tube on a tri - and various things, such as grants available on the Society’s various its early and continued support of APS member at Notre Dame pod would probably be a dangerous getting delayed,” said Sabra. sites to all readers at no cost and arXiv.org and with its copyright University –Louaize, had been in thing to do,” Sabra said. Now that the war is over, Sabra without a subscription. agreement form. The agreement the Bekaa valley for a long week - Laboratory equipment and text - worries that “probably money will OA journals have proliferated allows authors to make available end, planning to return to his home books were also delayed, he said. be taken from research to aid in the over the last decade in an attempt their APS publications on their own and work in Beirut. But the attacks Sabra had hoped to attend the meet - rebuilding effort.” to combat the sharp escalation in or their institution's website. intensified, and he was forced to ing of the International Roger Hajjar, a colleague of journal subscription prices. Among APS introduced its first OA jour - stay in the Bekaa for the duration Astronomical Union in Prague in Sabra’s at Notre Dame University the movement’s leaders is Harold nal, Physical Review Special Topics: of the war. late August, but wasn’t able to do –Louaize, shares that concern. Varmus, former NIH director and Accelerators and Beams , in 1998. His work was put on hold. Sabra so. Hajjar had been in France when the currently president and chief exec - Based on an institutional sponsor - and his astrophysicist colleagues In late August Sabra returned to war broke out, and because the utive of the Memorial-Sloan ship model, this journal has steadi - had been working on a proposal to Beirut, finding his house badly dam - Beirut airport was closed, Hajjar Kettering Cancer Center, who ly grown over the past 8 years and undertake site-testing at Lebanese aged. “My Beirut apartment is dam - had to delay his return to Lebanon. helped found a nonprofit OA organ - is now supported by an internation - mountains. “This key project that aged, basically uninhabitable. I will He fears that funding for scien - ization called the Public Library of al group of accelerator laborato - was to lay the foundations for obser - salvage what I can and find anoth - tific research in Lebanon will suf - Science (PLoS). ries. The Society introduced a sec - vational astronomy in Lebanon is er place to live in as soon as possi - fer as more government spending The emergence of OA journals ond OA journal in 2005 called stalled now,” he said. He and col - ble, to continue business as usual. will be devoted to reconstruction has sparked heated debate over their Physical Review Special Topics: leagues had been planning to do There are projects waiting, a sum - See WAR DISRUPTS on page 5 potentially adverse economic Physics Education Research . This impact on traditional scientific jour - journal is financed by publication nals, such as Science , Nature , and charges to the authors or the authors' the APS journals. Skeptics claim institutions. Sprouse to Succeed Blume As APS Editor-in-Chief OA journals are not economically The introduction of FREE TO viable and could put an end to exist - READ extends OA to the articles for Gene D. Sprouse, professor of as department chair from 1990 to cers, oversees the editorial staff and ing peer-reviewed journals, while all of the Society's journals. The physics at Stony Brook University, 1996. He served as director of the the journal production staff associ - proponents claim that OA improves FREE TO READ fees will initial - will become APS editor-in-chief Nuclear Structure Laboratory at ated with all ofAPS's research jour - the overall circulation and impact ly be $975 for articles in Physical early next year. He succeeds Martin Stony Brook from 1984 to 1987, nals: The Physical Review , Physical of scientific articles. Review A -E and $1300 for Physical Blume, who will be retiring. and again from 1996 to the present. Review Letters , and Reviews of Among the controversial ele - Review Letters . Articles in Reviews Blume has served as editor-in- His research interests include Modern Physics. APS journals are ments of the OA model is how one of Modern Physics , due to their large chief since the beginning of 1997. nuclear structure, neutral atom trap - all available online, and APS pro - should define open access. A pos - size and the limited number pub - Sprouse will take over the position ping, and laser spectroscopy of duces print versions of most of these sible definition is any online jour - lished annually, will be consid ered on on or about March 1, 2007. radioactive atoms. He is also inter - journals (two of the Physical Review nal that doesn’t charge subscrip - a case-by-case basis. The higher Sprouse received his PhD at ested in the development of radioac - journals are online only). In addi - tion fees. Because it charges a one- price associated with PRL is due to Stanford in 1968, and joined the tive beams.