Anew NPSS Chapter in Seoul, Korea (NPSS Seoul Chapter) was officially approved on June 8, 2009 as a result of the long-standing efforts of Korean NPSS members to establish a regional organization to promote academic exchange among members working in various areas of nuclear and plasma sciences. At its inaugural meeting held on July 3rd, Hee-Joung Kim (Yonsei Univ.) and Gyuseong Cho (KAIST) were elected as the founding Chair and Vice-Chair of the new chapter, respectively. Chapter members have joined from every region of Korea, even though the headquarters of the Chapter is located in Seoul.
One of the main purposes of the Chapter is to promote both national and international scientific activities in the fields of NPSS through the technical and financial sponsorship and endorsement of academic meetings held in Korea. For example, the Chapter will host annual joint symposia with the Korean Council of Nuclear Medicine Imaging and Instrumentation, which will be particularly useful for facilitating cooperation among members working in the fields of radiation detection, high energy physics and medical imaging. The next symposium will be held at the Samsung Medical Center, Seoul in January 2010, and will be hosted by Yong Choi (Sungkyunkwan Univ.).
Our Chapter is also currently making a bid to host the 2013 IEEE Nuclear Science Symposium and Medical Imaging Conference, which would be the first time this conference would be held in an Asian country. At the 2008 NSS/MIC meeting last October, before the Chapter was officially formed, a group from Korea submitted a proposal to the NSS/MIC Joint Oversight Committee proposing to host the 2013 NSS/MIC meeting in Seoul. This past August, several members of the Joint Oversight Subcommittee led by its Chair, Tom Lewellen, along with NPSS President Craig Woody, visited Korea to inspect the proposed venue, including the COEX Convention Center (the largest in Korea located on the biggest underground shopping mall in Asia), as well as the infrastructure of Seoul to host this very important conference of the NPSS. If it is finally decided to hold the 2013 NSS/MIC conference in Korea, our Chapter members are willing to devote themselves to making this conference a great success based on their experience with previous successful meetings in Korea, including the World Congress on Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering (WCMPBE, 2006), the Congress of World Federation of Nuclear Medicine and Biology (WFNMB, 2006), and the International Conference on Inorganic Scintillators and their Application (SCINT, 2009). The Seoul Metropolitan Government and several central governmental organizations, including the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, as well as a number of leading universities, have also pledged their full support.
Finally, the active participation and contributions from our Korean members, as well as the strong support from NPSS, are anticipated for the great success of this newly established, but very promising Chapter. The other executive board members are:
Jae Sung Lee (General Secretary, Seoul National Univ.)
Kisung Lee (Financial Secretary, Korea Univ.)
Yong Hyun Chung (Scientific Secretary, Yonsei Univ.)
Hong Joo Kim (Auditor, Kyungpook National Univ.)
Hee-Joung Kim, Chair of the NPSS Seoul Chapter, can be reached at the Department of Radiological Science, Yonsei University, Korea; E-mail: hjk1@yonsei.ac.kr. |
