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NPSS sponsors or co-sponsors approximately 14 conferences and some
members of the AdCom view the NPSS business as our main interest
in hosting technical conferences. For many, it is how we initially
became involved in IEEE activities and why we maintain our NPSS
membership. Moreover, a particular NPSS conference is an event we
do not want to miss.
Many IEEE Societies host a single conference and it is highly unusual
for an IEEE Society to host many diverse conferences - as NPSS does.
The diversity in our conferences reflects the technical diversity
of our membership. NPSS has eight Technical Committees, each of
which sponsors at least one conference which is run largely autonomously
by the sponsoring committee. As NPSS President, I have observed
the value of our diversity: it enables the quick spread of ideas
yet allows each Technical Committee to have its own culture, traditions
and needs. I was fortunate that I inherited a well functioning society
and as such, can concentrate on ways to make NPSS even more valuable
to its members. I would like to illustrate some of the trends among
our various conferences.
Several of our Technical Committees related to various aspects of
the Plasma Sciences have members in common and are combining or
collocating their conferences. This year, June in Albuquerque, New
Mexico will be a hotbed of NPSS activity. The Pulsed Power Sciences
and Technology and the Plasma Science and Applications Technical
Committees are holding a joint conference, known as PPPS2007. This
combining of these two conferences was first done in 2001 with great
success. Further synergy is gained by collocating the Symposium
on Fusion Engineering with PPPS2007 and even having joint social
events and sessions. The following week, the Particle Accelerator
Conference will be held in the same venue. In the weekend between
the conferences, a Plasma Science Weekend is planned as an educational
outreach to the community. This is a wonderful example of one variation
of the synergy between our technical committees.
NPSS has been keen on getting the international perspective at AdCom
for nearly a decade and has a very active Transnational Committee.
This year, our Transnational Committee Chair, Uwe Bratzler, has
been named a liaison to IEEE Region 8 from TAB. Another Transnational
Committee Member, Patrick LeDû has taken on the role of Transnational
Conferences Liaison to facilitate conferences held outside North
America. The Real Time Conference, sponsored by the Computer Applications
in Nuclear and Plasma Sciences Technical Committee, is routinely
held outside the United States. In recent years, other conferences
are focusing on serving a wider community by attracting more international
participants to their conferences. The Radiation Instrumentation
and the Nuclear Medical and Imaging Technical Committees have, in
recent years, held several conferences in Europe to facilitate interaction
with their European colleagues. With several large and successful
conferences held in Europe, and with more in the planning stages
including a Plasma Science ICOPS conference, NPSS is taking the
first steps toward encouraging more participation by their Asian
colleagues by holding two conferences in Hawaii this year: the Nuclear
and Space Radiation Effects Conference and the Nuclear Sciences
Symposium and Medical Imaging Conference. Both technical communities
have extensive ties with Asia and would like to deepen interaction
with their Asian colleagues.
At NPSS, our conferences are the most public activity we have and
we are exceptionally proud of them. Judging from the many conferences
I have been to, they are highly valued by the participants. At NPSS,
we continually look for ways to improve, and the diversity found
within NPSS is truly an asset.
Jane Lehr, IEEE NPSS President, can be reached at Sandia National
Laboratories, MS1152, PO Box 5800, Albuquerque, NM 87185-1193; Phone
+1 505 844 8554; E-mail: jmlehr@sandia.gov.
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