Over the last couple of months, the Nuclear and Plasma Sciences Society,
(NPSS) has started activities in the framework of the special IEEE program for Graduates of the Last Decade (GOLD). At the Nuclear Science Symposium and Medical Imaging Conference, which was held in Orlando, Florida, at the end of October, a special reception was held for these members of NPSS. Attendance was free, but restricted to GOLD members and, in order to extend a special welcome to them and allow for networking right away, to conference attendees that had joined IEEE and/or the Nuclear and Plasma Sciences Society at this meeting.
The large ballroom, where the reception took place, was arranged in a way that established a comfortable, casual atmosphere from the very beginning, encouraging personal contact among the attendees. As they entered the ballroom, everybody was welcomed by the GOLD committee chair and invited to take some refreshments. Five speakers who have well-established bright careers in academia, government research labs and industry were invited to give brief summaries of what they have done to get where they are today. When the first speaker, William Moses from Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, started to talk, all attendees intuitively formed a loose circle around the small table where the refreshments were served. This part was intended to be really short, 30 minutes for the five speeches altogether, since emphasis was intended to be on peer group discussions and contact-making between GOLD members and the leading professionals who were invited, including several IEEE fellows. In this sense, “individual career advice in a casual atmosphere” could be put as the Leitmotiv over the event, which was attended by about
50 people.
Quite a range of successful career planning activities were covered by the following speakers who came from various institutions, such as Brookhaven National Lab where Craig Woody, NPSS president and second speaker at the GOLD reception, works. Ingrid Gregor from Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron (DESY) and Hartmut Hillemanns, who now works in the knowledge and technology transfer group of the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), after having gained experience in industry, gave further examples of what a successful career in engineering or science might look like.
When the reception closed after some two hours, Wei Hu, a Ph.D. student at the School of Medicine of Sun Kyun Kwan University, Korea, said: “I really enjoyed the short talks given by professionals. The talk I liked most was the one given by Charles Watson from Siemens Medical Solutions. He is working in a field I have always been excited about, and where I would like to work after having completed my Ph.D. Dr. Watson could give me some valuable hints on how to get closer to my goal; he now is my first personal contact to that company.”
Wei Hu could not have summarized better what the GOLD reception was about. Given its substantial success, similar events will be organized at future conferences held under the auspices of the Nuclear and Plasma Sciences Society, with the overall goal being the benefit to our young GOLD members.
Christoph Ilgner, GOLD committee chair, can be reached at Technische Universität Dortmund, Experimentelle Physik 5, 44221 Dortmund, Germany; Phone: +41-22-76-72969; Fax: +41-22-76-79080; E-mail:Christoph.Ilgner@cern.ch.
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