Letter from the Chair

Dear FOEP Members

Welcome to the Fall 2016 Newsletter!

This is my second report to you as Chair of the Forum on Outreach and Engaging the Public of the American Physical Society. In 2017, Itai Cohen advances to Chair, and I graduate to Past Chair.

Let me start by thanking our Editor, Heide Doss, who once again has prepared a great issue with articles from many contributors on many interesting topics. The level of effort and great quality of the Newsletter she edits is self evident and has impressed us all at FOEP. The Newsletter serves the important role of communicating activities to the FOEP membership, of initiating discussions on topics of interest, and providing a medium to hear from the members. We thank Heide for doing a great job!

I am also delighted to extend a warm welcome to our FOEP Members from the entire Executive Committee. We clearly recognize the role of science outreach and agree that it is critically important that the next generation and the public takes an interest in science.

As Chair of FOEP it has been a pleasure to see the successful continuation of many activities, which hopefully will last for a long period of time thanks to your support and engagement. Your participation in any of the FOEP activities listed in this Newsletter are welcome, as is your proposal of new initiatives. Preliminary information on those activities and highlighting some special contributions are presented in this Letter from the Chair.

FOEP Sponsored Sessions
In 2016 we had successful and well attended sessions at the APS Baltimore and Salt Lake City meetings. For a comment on the invited sessions and the outreach happy hour meeting see the contribution by Ivan Schuller, Alice Bean and Rebecca Thompson. At the March meeting FOEP also co-sponsored a special outreach session on science and cooking, and the stage reading of a play.

This Newsletter itself is your first guide to the wide variety of FOEP sponsored sessions and activities. In 2017 our Chair of the Program Committee, Itai Cohen will assemble an outstanding lineup of speakers for the FOEP invited sessions at the annual APS Meetings in Washington (January 28-31) and in New Orleans (March 13-17). FOEP will also offer several interesting and exciting special activities: focus and mini grant sessions, workshops, contributed talks, the Ithaca Physics Bus, stage reading of a science-based play, physic slam, Happy Hour meeting, etc.

I encourage you to attend the FOEP sessions at the March and April (January) meetings, and invite you to send us your feedback and ideas for future FOEP sessions.

Membership Drive
In the March 2016 Newsletter, Michael Barnett reported on a survey of FOEP's membership. Outreach activities covered a very broad range with public talks and /or public demos far ahead of others.

Recently, Michael produced new membership statistics at varying dates. Our Forum grew substantially between 2012 (822 members) and 2016 (1781 members ) although at 3.35% of the total APS membership, FOEP is still below membership percentages of other Forums (˃ 6%). It should be noted that FOEP membership is 26.5% female, whereas APS as a whole is 15%. Also FOEP has 52% students compared to 35% for APS and has 11% early career members compared to 7.5% for APS.

FOEP members are an important ingredient in the FOEP activities and we are actively seeking new members. They can join FOEP at no cost prior to renewing their APS membership by sending an email to membership@aps.org with the request to add FOEP to their membership.

Dwight Nicholson Medal for Outreach
APS also awards a variety of prizes for outstanding achievements in different aspects of the physics profession, on research, outreach, education and public service. FOEP in particular is involved in the Dwight Nicholson Medal Award, given annually, to recognize the humanitarian aspect of physics and physicists. How the 2015 Awardees, Charles Falco (University of Arizona) and David Kaplan (Johns Hopkins University), became involved in outreach activities is given in two interviews by Heide Doss. Through public lectures, exhibits, documentary films, or science related activities, they succeeded to stimulate the interest and involvement of the general public on the progress in physics.

Although the next Nicholson Award nomination cycle will not be here for little more than a year, I invite you to participate and consider nominating fellow members that would fit the criteria of the prize. Please learn more at the Dwight Nicholson Medal webpage.

APS Fellowship
Each division, topical group and forum in APS is eligible to nominate APS members. The FOEP has a Fellowship Selection Committee that evaluates in detail the nominations submitted by the membership. The nomination process is relatively simple, with different deadlines for the different units, but the consequences are most important. To quote from the APS site, “Fellowship is a distinct honor signifying recognition by one's professional peers.” I encourage you to participate in the nomination process. Please learn more at the APS Fellows page.

Report from the APS Council Steering Committee
The leadership of the APS Council is the Council Steering Committee (CSC). Gay Stewart is one of the four CSC Councilors and a member of the FOEP Executive Committee. Some important points from the 2016 Mid-year Report of the APS Council of Representatives are summarized on the APS Council Report page.

The International Solvay Institutes Outreach Activities
From Monday October 30 through Friday November 3, 1911, twenty three leading physicists from all over Europe met at the Hotel Métropole in Brussels. For more than a century the tradition of scientific excellence continued and the activities of the International Solvay Institutes greatly expanded including an important emphasis on scientific outreach. A highlight of their activities is the yearly Solvay Public Lectures where distinguished scientists deliver lectures on the state-of-the-art in their field of research. This event popularizes science and aims at making it more attractive to the younger generations. The exciting story of the Solvay Meetings in Brussels is presented by Alexander Sevrin on the Solvay Meetings page.

Finally, I would like to take this opportunity to thank the FOEP Executive Committee, and in particular the secretary/treasurer E. Dan Dahlberg, for their tireless efforts and commitment to improving FOEP and APS more broadly. It has been a pleasure serving with all of them as we have set out to represent you not only through the meeting programs but also through engagement with APS. FOEP is a thriving part of APS, and it has been a honor serving as your Chair for the past year.

Yvan Bruynseraede, Chair

The current FOEP Executive Committee members are:
Past Chair: Michael Barnett
Chair: Yvan Bruynseraede
Chair-Elect: Itai Cohen
Vice-Chair: Larry Gladney
Secretary/Treasurer: E. Dan Dahlberg
Members at Large: Alice Bean, Heide Doss, Jennifer Ross, Amber Stuver, plus APS Staff member: Rebecca Thompson
Assigned Council Representative: Gay Stewart
Editor of Newsletter: Heide Doss