Radiation Instrumentation Update

I’d like to give a short update on the activities of the RITC since the last Newsletter. One of the main activities has been to start to plan for the 2007 and 2008 NSS/MIC meetings. The Site Selection Committee, chaired by Ron Keyser, along with Ron Jaszczak, Roger Gearhart, Glenn Knoll, Ed Lampo, Patrick Le Dû and Erik Heijne, has been busy looking into a number of possible sites. These include Hawaii, Las Vegas, Salt Lake City, St. Louis, Germany and Australia. Each of the sites is being investigated by a small subcommittee which will make their proposals to the Site Selection Committee for consideration. The proposal for Australia was presented by Anatoly Rozenfeld at the last RISC meeting in Portland last October. The proposal for Germany was also discussed at this meeting, and a number of further discussions with our European colleagues have followed. The general feeling is that the NSS/MIC meeting should be held in Europe every three to four years, and with the 2004 meeting being held in Rome this year, Germany would be a very attractive site for 2008. However, the Committee is now focusing its attention more on the 2007 meeting, and will work to choose a site and identify the key members of the organizing committee as soon as possible.

After all of the proposals are in, the Committee will narrow down the number of possible sites to two or three, and then visit those properties and try and negotiate a contract with one or more hotels at each site. This process will take place over this spring and summer, with the aim of having a short list of sites and contracts to choose from by the time of the Rome meeting in the fall. There the Site Selection Committee will make its recommendations to the RISC and the NMISC and the final site for the 2007 meeting will be selected.

In addition to the long range planning for future NSS/MIC meetings, there is also intensive activity going on for the 2004, 2005 and 2006 meetings. The 2004 meeting, which will be chaired by Alberto Del Guerra, will be held from October 16-22, 2004 at the Ergife Palace Hotel in Rome, Italy. The deadline for paper submission was May 17, 2004, so hopefully all of you got your papers submitted on time. Their website is http://www.nss-mic.org/2004, so please check this site for future announcements, and start thinking about making your travel plans to Rome, as we expect that this will again be another large and very exciting meeting.

The dates, locations and General Chairs for other future NSS/MIC meetings are:

• 2005 Oct 22 to 29, San Juan, PR
  General Chair: Tom Lewellen
  
• 2006 Oct 28 to Nov 4, San Diego, CA
  General Chair: Graham Smith

The other RISC activity which is under way is with the Awards Committee, chaired by David Wehe. The RITC offers two awards: the Outstanding Achievements Award, which is given to an accomplished IEEE member for outstanding contributions to the field of nuclear instrumentation; and the Early Career Award, which is given to a more junior person for outstanding achievements in the early part of his or her career. Normally, the Outstanding Achievement Award is given in odd years, and would have been given out last year, but this did not take place due to a delay in the final balloting. However, this award will be presented this year at the Rome meeting. The Early Career Award will also be given this year, and nominations are currently being accepted. They can be submitted to David Wehe using the nomination form located at http://ewh.ieee.org/soc/nps/awards.htm. One other change which has taken place since the last round of nominations is that the requirement for nominees for both of these awards to be IEEE or NPSS members has been eliminated. This change was approved by the AdCom at its last meeting in March. Therefore, any person who meets the achievement criteria for these awards, regardless of whether or not they are IEEE or NPSS members, can now be nominated.

We are also calling for nominations for new people to serve on the RISC starting next year. The individuals whose terms are expiring this year are Leon Kaufman, Zane Bell, Patrick Le Dû, Marek Moszynski and Tony Peurrung, and we thank them all for their service on the committee. We will therefore have five seats open on the RISC for three year terms starting in January of 2005. Any member in good standing of the RITC, which means you must be a member of the IEEE and NPSS, and be a subscriber to the Transactions on Nuclear Science, is eligible to serve on the RISC. Please consider serving on this important committee (self nominations are allowed), or whether you would like to nominate someone else to serve. This is an excellent opportunity to get involved in the workings and decision making process of how our society is run. It also plays an extremely vital role in preserving the continuation of our annual NSS/MIC meeting, which I can say without hesitation, is one of the most respected and prestigious meetings of its kind in our field. So, please, get involved and make your opinion count. The closing date for nominations is July 1, 2004. Nominations should be sent to woody@bnl.gov or give me a call at 613-344-2752.

Craig Woody can be reached at Brookhaven National Laboratory, Physics Dept., Bldg 510C, Upton, NY 11973; Phone: +1 613 344-2752; Fax: +1 631 344-3253; E-mail: woody@bnl.gov.