|
Vernon G. Price
|
About 7400 km distant from its normal location, a meeting of the French chapter of NPS took place at the 38th Annual International Nuclear and Space Radiation Effects Conference in Vancouver, B.C., Canada. This most unusual NPS Chapter meeting with about a dozen members in attendance, took place under the direction its chair, Dr. Jean-Luc Leray. The meeting, conducted in French, provided a golden opportunity for the conference attendees of the chapter to get together to plan future activities. I hope that similar ad hoc meetings can be arranged at future conferences. NSREC always attracts members from France and this meeting should become an annual event. Chapter chairs attending the forthcoming NSS/MIS conference in San Diego California are urged to let me know so that such meetings might take place at that time.
Professor Klaus Frank, chair of the German chapter of NPS and Dr. Jane Lehr, chair of the joint NPS chapter in Albuquerque NM were in attendance at the Pulsed Power Plasma Science Conference held in Reno Nevada in June. A number of members of their respective chapters were also in attendance. We could have held similar ad hoc meetings at that conference had that occurred to us. At least now we have an idea that can be tried in the future.
A new chapter of our Society has formed in Italy under the guidance of Dr. Alessandro Rizzo at the University of Messina. Thus, we now have 5 active chapters in Region 8 including the Benelux chapter under Dr. Pedro M. Almeida, the French chapter mentioned above, the German chapter also mentioned above, a joint chapter in Ukraine East under the direction of Dr. Yevgeny Kuleshov and now one in Italy. A sufficient number of NPS members live in Moscow to form a chapter of our Society in that country and several in attendance at NSREC 2001 indicated to me a strong desire to do so. Further, an interest was expressed at the PPPS 2001 conference by attendees from Israel to form a chapter in their area of region 8. I will follow through with these aspirations and help to make the formations occur.
Reports of interesting meetings are coming to me from the Albuquerque and the Oakland East Bay chapters of NPS. I will summarize the titles of these meetings and their results in the next newsletter. Other chapters are encouraged to let me know of their successes and problems.
The summertime population of NPS stands at 2826 members. Hopefully, this number will grow as usual toward the end of the year. Of the thousand attendees at the PPPS 2001 conference, 46 new members of IEEE/NPS were recruited. More than 60% of these were PhD level scientists or engineers, each with many years of experience. Five of the balance held Masters Degrees (or equivalent) and the rest held the equivalent of Bachelors degrees. This is not unusual for our society. Twenty six of the attendees were from the United States (although many had trained elsewhere) and the balance were from 11 other counties: Germany, France, Sweden, Korea, Israel, Czech Republic, Ukraine, Hong Kong, Australia, Russia and the United Kingdom. Six were students presenting their PhD thesis papers.
A similar result obtained at the NSREC 2001 conference in Vancouver, B.C. Canada. With about 500 attendees, half were found to be IEEE members. Seventy per cent of the IEEE members also belonged to NPSS. Recruiting the non-IEEE people resulted in 38 new members of IEEE and NPS. An effort is being made to promote membership in our society to those 76 IEEE people in attendance who were not members of NPS. It is hoped that these people, given a trial membership, will continue with it when the fall renewal season begins covering the year 2002.
Vernon Price, the Chair of the NPSS Chapter and Membership Development Committees, can be reached at 22151 Berkeley Ct, Los Altos, CA 94024-7452; Phone: +1 408 737-0778; Fax: +1 408 737-1922; E-mail: v.price@ieee.org