APS Members Elect Homer Neal to Presidential Line
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August/September 2013 • Vol. 22, No. 8 A PUBLICATION OF THE AMERICAN PHYSICAL SOCIETY We have a winner! See page 5 WWW.APS.ORG/PUBLICATIONS/APSNEWS APS Members Elect Homer Neal to Presidential Line APS Set to Launch Applied Physics Journal Following approval by the strong desire for an APS-run ap- In Society-wide elections in January of next year, succeed- Executive Board in June, APS is plied physics journal. The Forum June, APS members cast their ing Sam Aronson of Brookhaven gearing up to launch a new jour- on Industrial and Applied Phys- ballots for Homer Neal of the National Lab, who will become nal of applied physics. Physical ics in particular showed great University of Michigan to be the President-elect. This year’s Pres- Review Applied is slated to debut interest in such a journal. In addi- next vice-President. As the newest ident-elect, Malcolm Beasley of early in 2014, and will feature tion, the Society’s editors found member of the Presidential Line, Stanford University, will become high quality applied research ar- that the new journal would likely Neal will become APS President President, while current President ticles from all areas of physics. benefit from about a thousand pa- in 2016. Michael Turner will remain on the “APS built its reputation on pers a year that are now submit- The members also voted for APS Council and Executive Board pure physics and it’s important ted to APS journals but have to Kiyoshi Ueda of Tohoku Uni- as past-President. for us to reach out to the applied be rejected because they are out- versity to be a new International Neal is currently the interim physics community and say that side the current scope of research Councilor, Nadya Mason of the president emeritus and vice-pres- Homer Neal there is a home for applied phys- covered by the Physical Review. University of Illinois at Urbana- ident for research emeritus at the ics here,” said Gene Sprouse, “We’re constantly looking at Champaign to be a General Coun- University of Michigan. He spe- ian Institution, served on both the APS Editor in Chief. how we should be growing our cilor, and Patricia McBride of Fer- cializes in particle physics, and National Research Council and The Society conducted sur- journals and it was clear that milab to be the Chair-elect of the is a member of the ATLAS col- the governing board of the Na- veys of a cross section of its applied physics was a bur- tional Science Foundation, and is Nominating Committee. laboration at CERN. He has also membership, which showed a JOURNAL continued on page 7 Neal will assume his office in served as Regent of the Smithson- NEAL continued on page 4 Phys Rev X Debuts with Top-Ten “Impact Factor” Ranking APS to Participate in Multi-Publisher APS’s newest journal is having Two other measures, in which Open Access Research Clearinghouse a noticeable impact on physicists PRX also ranks in the top ten around the world, according to among broad-scope physics jour- Following the June meeting existing infrastructure to comply Journal Citation Reports (JCR). nals, reinforce the fact that PRX of the Executive Board, APS an- with recent federal open access Physical Review X received an is having an impact throughout nounced that it would be working mandates. initial “impact factor” of 6.711, the physics community. JCR gave with the federal government and In February, the administra- putting it alongside two other APS PRX a high score of 2.225 in its journal publishers to help develop tion’s Office of Science and Tech- publications among the ten most “immediacy index,” which indi- a system for scientists to access nology Policy issued a memo that influential multidisciplinary phys- cates how quickly work published publications resulting from feder- would ultimately require all scien- ics journals. in a journal is disseminated and ally funded research. tific papers stemming from feder- JCR, published annually by cited. The Clearinghouse for the ally funded research to be avail- Thomson Reuters, seeks to ob- Jorge Pullin In addition, another organiza- Open Research of the United able for free to anyone after an jectively measure an academic tion that tracks academic journal States, or CHORUS, would be an embargo period. The specific form journal’s importance to the re- the number of citations in a given influence, Eigenfactor, gave PRX online platform that links to open of the policy was not spelled out search community by tracking the year to articles published in the high marks for a journal of its size. access journal articles stored on in the memo, and one of the big- number of citations each article journal in the previous two years, Their “article influence” metric is publishers’ servers. Developed by gest open questions was whether receives. The impact factor of a divided by the total number of similar to an impact factor, but at- the American Association of Pub- the papers would be hosted on those articles. journal is essentially calculated as PHYS REV X continued on page 7 lishers, it would use publishers’ OPEN ACCESS continued on page 7 Meeting Helps Bridge Programs Interact Executive Officer Kate Kirby Plans Strategically for 2nd Term By Bushraa Khatib versity (see the report in the July In April, the APS Council voted getting the APS Presidential Line to extend Executive Officer Kate and my fellow operating officers The APS Bridge Program APS News). Each site was also on board. Barry Barish, who was (APS-BP) is committed to increas- able to admit one student directly Kirby’s term at the helm of the So- APS President in 2011, was very ing the number of underrepresent- into their graduate programs. Stu- ciety for another five years. Com- supportive of devoting consider- ed minority students who receive dents who applied to APS-BP were menting on the vote, APS President able time to discussions between PhDs in physics. In late June, considered by other graduate pro- Michael Turner said “She’s been a the Executive Board and the APS APS-BP hosted a meeting that grams as well, with sixteen offers terrific leader of APS. One of the staff, which formed the basis of the involved a variety of programs of admission made to ten students. most important things that she’s and organizations with similar Five of these students accepted of- done is to represent us to the out- Strategic Plan. interests. More than 60 people at- fers, and at press time five students side world, whether it is working tended the conference, which took have offers pending, leaving the with other societies, or at meetings What ultimately did you pro- place at the American Center for potential of APS assisting possibly of young women physicists, or at duce? Physics in College Park, MD. At- up to 19 students to enter gradu- a National Academy committee. We produced a ten-page docu- tendees included representatives ate programs in physics during the She’s done a tremendous job of be- Kate Kirby ment with four broad goals, which from APS, the American Associa- first year of the bridge program. ing the face of the American Physi- are: serving our members better, your first term at APS? tion of Physics Teachers (AAPT), The meeting was the first op- cal Society.” serving the physics community bet- I gave myself a year in the Ex- the American Institute of Physics portunity for newly selected APS Much of Kirby’s first term was ter, serving society better, and then ecutive Officer position before lay- (AIP), bridge programs, and col- Bridge Fellows to meet each other devoted to developing APS’s re- an inwardly focused goal, which is leges and universities across the and site leaders at their respective cently unveiled five-year strategic ing the groundwork for starting to increase our organizational ex- US. bridge sites. Students are begin- plan. Over her next term, she, along strategic planning. It was internally cellence. Under each of these goals Although just getting under- ning classes, research, and other with the other operating officers, initiated. I really feel that it’s essen- are a number of specific objectives. way, the APS Bridge Program has programmatic activities this sum- will oversee the implementation of tial for any organization to have a The plan was drafted in early been able to facilitate the place- mer. the goals laid out in the plan. APS strategic plan that lays out a vision 2012, the Executive Board adopt- ment of at least 14 students into “The conference was a great News sat down with Kirby to talk and a roadmap. It helps shape pri- ed it, and Bob Byer, who was the physics bridge programs or direct- opportunity for collaborations– about how the plan came to be, and orities for the organization and also President, was a fantastic advocate ly into graduate programs. Seven especially for students to network what it will mean for the Society in serves as a guide for assessing the and worked tirelessly to get it out to students were named Bridge Fel- with each other and faculty as they the coming years. importance and relevance of op- members and to discuss it with unit lows at two newly selected APS begin their bridge programs,” said portunities that we take advantage executive committees. I enjoyed Bridge sites, University of South Brian Beckford, APS Bridge How did the development of in the future. very much working with him. Florida and The Ohio State Uni- BRIDGE continued on page 6 of the strategic plan help shape Laying the groundwork meant KIRBY continued on page 6 2 • August/September 2013 Members This Month in Physics History in the Lord Rayleigh and the Discovery of Argon: August 13, 1894 Media “A searcher obedient to truth,” he found a truth he was not searching for.