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last AdCom meeting was held in San Antonio, TX at the Menger Hotel.
We welcomed new AdCom members Sandra Biedron (PAST) returning for
a full term, Eric Frey (NMIS), Jim Schwank (RE) and Rick Van Berg
(RI), and Ron Gilgenbach, the new chair of the Plasma Science and
Applications TC to their first meeting of their terms.
Ed Lampo noted that we are behind in closing out conferences, and
that the situation is not improving. Not only does this mean penalties,
it also means that the IEEE auditors are unhappy. Conferences are
being asked for more frequent reporting prior to conferences and
during the closeout period. Turning accounts over to IEEE Conference
Services for final closeouts helps a lot. You don’t have to
wait to pay that last late bill. It can be paid directly from Piscataway,
saving both our treasurer and your conference treasurers’
considerable grief. However, we did end up in a financially healthy
position in 2006 with an increase in reserves due in part to Transactions
on Plasma Sciences staying within its page budget, and thereby gaining
us a bonus.
Jane Lehr reported on the TAB meeting. The Engineering Management
Society will become a council. NPSS will not be involved. Hal Flescher’s
algorithm for infrastructure support was approved. This will impact
us financially, but not to a harmful extent. A percentage of earned
packaged product income will be used to support indirect infrastructure
activities. This will avoid the need for a huge dues increase that
the present paradigm would require, and which certainly would be
unacceptable to membership.
IEEE membership has increased and the traditional early year slump
was not seen this year. The IEEE Foundation has money to support
technology literacy programs, so get in touch with them if you have
ideas and would like to submit a proposal. IEEE has also developed
a new Best Practices for Conferences. It is on line at http://www.ieee.org/web/conferences/mom/index.html.
Jane has joined the TAB Periodicals Committee.
Plans for all 2007 conferences are well in hand. The weeks from
June 17 through June 29 in Albuquerque will be an IEEE NPSS extravaganza,
as Jane has discussed in the President’s Report. Plans for
2008 and 2009 conferences are also well in hand and you can learn
much about them from the NPS web site, http://www.ieee-npss.org.
If you have comments or suggestions for improving the web site,
send them to me, to Peter Clout (clout@vista-control.com)
or to Richard Kouzes, our web master (RKouzes@pnl.gov).
We’d like to make our web site as useful as possible for our
members.
Our Transnational Committee continues to expand and now has 18 members,
with expansion ongoing. The goal is not just to represent our members
outside North America, but to also represent the full breadth of
our technical community. There is also discussion of a new chapter
in Taiwan. Remember that you can get your international colleagues
involved in your conferences as session chairs, reviewers, committee
members and so on, thereby broadening the international aspects
of NPSS. The Membership Committee is also looking at some small
benefits at conferences in the USA for international participants.
Additionally, our Transnational Conferences Liaison, Patrick LeDû,
is available to consult with chairs of these conferences, help provide
a liaison to Tony Lavietes, the Associate Treasurer for conferences,
and to give guidance from his own many experiences in organizing
international IEEE NPSS conferences (patrick.ledu@cea.fr).
Patrick will work with the Conference Planning Committee to add
a chapter on planning international conferences to the NPSS-specific
conference planning guide that complements the IEEE guidelines referenced
above.
Our Distinguished Lecturers program is starting to gain traction
and we have quite a fine roster of speakers available for chapter
and other meetings. There is even some help available. Check out
our web site and contact Charles Neumeyer (cneumeyer@ppl.gov)
with questions.
The Fellow Candidate Evaluation Committee has some concerns about
recommending people as IEEE fellows who, although exemplary in their
field, have no visible IEEE involvement beyond having rank of Senior
Member – that is, they haven’t published in IEEE journals,
haven’t participated in IEEE conferences as presenters or
committee members or reviewers, and so on. This is an ongoing discussion
and is relevant to other societies as well.
Please note Bill Moses’ article on need for nominees to fill
elected AdCom positions for Fusion, Plasma Science and Applications,
Pulsed Power and Radiation Effects Technical Committees. Serving
on AdCom is both a privilege and a wonderful education about the
depth and breadth of our society’s work, as well as an opportunity
to gain better connectivity with what is happening at the TAB and
Board of Directors levels of IEEE.
Our publications are doing well, and are ranked highly on the basis
of “hits” and citations.
The Standards Committee has withdrawn the germanium detector standard
to upgrade figures. Fourteen of our standards were reaffirmed recently.
If you have an interest in standards development, contact Ron Keyser
(Ron.Keyser@ametek.com),
our Standards Committee Chair.
Allan Johnston, our new liaison to IEEE Women in Engineering, gave
a comprehensive report on this fairly new activity. We are one of
only eight of 39 IEEE societies with a liaison to this group. If
you are interested, contact Allan at allan.h.johnston@jpl.nasa.gov.
The AdCom will meet again on June 23, 2007 in Albuquerque.
Albe Larsen can be reached by E-mail at amlarsen@slac.stanford.edu.
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