It’s that time of year again, when APS members have the opportunity to elect next year’s leadership from a slate of candidates selected by the APS Nominating Committee. Brief biographical descriptions for each candidate can be found below. Those elected will begin their terms on 1 January 2008. Members will elect a Vice President, Chair-Elect of the Nominating Committee, and two General Councillors. All votes must be entered by Noon, Central Daylight Time, September 1, 2007. Expanded biographical information, candidates’ statements, and further information about the election can be found at www.aps.org/about/governance/election/.
Vice President
William Bardeen Fermilab
William Allan Bardeen received his AB degree from Cornell University in 1962 and his PhD degree in physics from the University of Minnesota in 1968. Following research appointments at the Institute for Theoretical Physics at Stony Brook and the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, he was an Assistant and Associate Professor in the Physics Department at Stanford University. In 1975 Bardeen joined the staff of the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, where he has served as Head of the Theoretical Physics Department. He has been a member of the Executive Committee of the Division of Particles and Fields of the APS and served on the Editorial Boards of the Physical Review and the Journal of Mathematical Physics. Bardeen was elected Fellow of the APS in 1984. He was inducted as a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1998 and elected a Member of the National Academy of Sciences in 1999. In 2002 Bardeen was awarded an honorary degree by the University of Minnesota. He has also served as a Member and Trustee of the Aspen Center for Physics. Bardeen was awarded the 1996 J.J. Sakurai Prize of the APS for his work on anomalies and perturbative quantum chromodynamics. In 1985, he was awarded a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship for research on the application of quantum field theory to elementary particle physics. Previously, he received the Senior Scientist Award of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellowship for research in theoretical physics.
Curtis Callan Princeton University
Curtis Callan received his AB in physics from Haverford College in 1961 and his PhD from Princeton in 1964. In 1967, after postdoctoral work at Princeton, he took up an assistant professorship in physics at Harvard University. In 1969, he moved back to Princeton as a long-term member of the Institute for Advanced Study and rejoined Princeton University in 1972 as a professor of physics. He has remained at Princeton ever since and is currently the J. S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor of Physics. Callan has held visiting professorships at the University of Paris, the Ecole Normale Superieure (Paris), the Institute for Advanced Study, the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center and Caltech, where he was Gordon Moore Scholar. His administrative responsibilities at Princeton have included being chair of the Physics Department and helping establish the Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics. He is the founding director of the Princeton Center for Theoretical Physics, an enterprise devoted to enhancing the postdoctoral training of theorists in frontier areas where physics engages other fields. His work for the physics community at large includes service on visiting committees of physics departments and national laboratories in the US and abroad, membership on the board of the NSF Institute for Theoretical Physics at UCSB, and chairmanship of the Nominating Committee of the APS. Callan is a long-time member, and was chairman from 1990 to 1995, of JASON, a group that advises the US government on national security implications of science and technology. This activity has given him insight into the role of science in the “real” world and, incidentally, greatly broadened his horizons in physics itself. Callan was elected to membership in the National Academy of Sciences in 1987. He received the 2000 Sakurai Prize for Particle Theory of the APS and was the recipient of the 2004 Dirac Medal of the International Center for Theoretical Physics. He has held a Sloan Fellowship, is a Fellow of the American Physical Society, and is also a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Chair Elect, Nominating Committee
Angela V. Olinto University of Chicago
Angela V. Olinto is Professor in the Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics and the Enrico Fermi Institute, and a member of the Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics at the University of Chicago. Her research interests are in astroparticle physics and cosmology. Olinto received her B.S. in Physics from the Pontificia Universidade Católica, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and her PhD in Physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1987) for work on the physics of quark stars. At Fermilab, she worked on inflationary theory and cosmic magnetic fields. Her recent work has focused on the nature of the dark matter in the universe and the origin of the highest energy cosmic particles. She is a member of the international collaboration of the Pierre Auger Observatory. Olinto was Chair of the Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the University of Chicago. She is a Fellow of the APS, a trustee of the Aspen Center for Physics, and has served on many advisory committees for the NRC, DOE, NSF, and NASA. In 2006, she received the Chaire d’Excellence Award of the French Agence Nationale de Recherche.
Jorge Pullin Louisiana State University
Jorge Pullin is the Horace Hearne Chair in Theoretical Physics at the Louisiana State University. His research interests center in theoretical gravitational physics, both in its classical and quantum aspects, including the application of numerical techniques. He recently served as the chair of the Topical Group in Gravitation of the APS. His administrative experience also includes serving as associate director of Penn State’s Center for Gravitational Physics and Geometry and as co-director of the Horace Hearne Jr. Institute for Theoretical Physics at Louisiana State. He is the managing editor of International Journal of Modern Physics D and serves on the editorial board of New Journal of Physics and served on the board of Classical and Quantum Gravity (both journals of the Institute of Physics UK). He is one of the US representatives at the International Committee for General Relativity and Gravitation. He has received several distinctions, including Alfred P. Sloan, John S. Guggenheim and Fulbright fellowships, a Career Award from the National Science Foundation and the Edward Bouchet Award of the APS. He is also a corresponding member of the National Academies of Science of Argentina and Mexico and of the Latin American Academy of Sciences. He is a fellow of APS, of the Institute of Physics (UK), and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He got his doctorate in physics from the Balseiro Institute in Argentina in 1989.
General Councillor
Ani Aprahamian Notre Dame University
Ani Aprahamian has been a professor of physics at the University of Notre Dame since 1989. She received her PhD in Nuclear Chemistry from Clark University working at the High Flux Beam Reactor at Brookhaven National Laboratory. She was a postdoctoral fellow at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. She has been the PI and director of the Nuclear Structure Laboratory at the University of Notre Dame, and the Chair of the Physics Department. Ani is a fellow of the APS, the Reilly Center for Science, Technology, and Values, and the “collegium” at Notre Dame. She has worked on many university committees on Academic Life, Cultural Diversity, Campus Climate, sexual discrimination, and Academic Affirmative Action. She has served on the APS committee on the Status of Women, International Freedom of Scientists, and various Division of Nuclear Physics committees including encouraging competitive enhancement of women (WECAN).
Marcela Carena Fermilab
Marcela Carena is a senior scientist at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Illinois. She received her Diploma in Physics from the Instituto Balseiro of Bariloche, Argentina in 1985, and her PhD in Physics from the University of Hamburg in 1989. She was a John Stuart Bell Fellow at CERN from 1993-1995 and was awarded a Marie Curie Fellowship in 1996. She has been a staff scientist at Fermilab since 1997. Carena is a theoretical particle physicist working at the frontiers of physics beyond the Standard Model. She is a member of the APS Committee on International Scientific Affairs. She is a former member of the APS Division of Particles and Fields Executive Committee, the current chair of the DPF Nominating Committee and a Fellow of the APS. She serves on the Particle Physics Project Prioritization Panel (P5) of the U.S. DOE/NSF High Energy Physics Advisory Panel. She originated an innovative visitor program that brings Latin American students to pursue research at Fermilab as part of the graduate education at their home institutions. She has given public outreach lectures in conjunction with physics workshops and in the Fermilab area. Carena is married and has two children.
Katherine Freese University of Michigan
Katherine Freese is Professor of Physics at the University of Michigan and Associate Director of the Michigan Center for Theoretical Physics (MCTP). Her research is in the area of theoretical cosmology, at the interface of particle physics and astrophysics. She received her BA in Physics from Princeton University her MA in Physics in 1981 from Columbia University; and her PhD in Physics in 1984 from the University of Chicago, where she was recipient of the William Rainey Harper Award Fellowship. Her first postdoctoral position was at the Harvard/Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, followed by a postdoctoral fellowship at the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics at Santa Barbara and a Presidential Fellowship at the University of California, Berkeley. She was an Assistant Professor at MIT from 1987-1991, where she was recipient of a SLOAN Foundation Fellowship as well as an NSF Presidential Young Investigator Award. She is now Professor of Physics at the University of Michigan. Freese has served on many advisory panels and committees, including: Member of the Board of the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics in Santa Barbara from 2000-2003; General Member of the Board of the Aspen Center for Physics from 1993-2003; she is currently a member of the Astronomy and Astrophysics Advisory Committee (AAAC) mandated by Congress; she currently serves on the DMSAG (Dark Matter Scientific Advisory Group).
Jen-Chieh Peng University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
Jen-Chieh Peng is Professor of Physics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He received his bachelor’s degree in physics from Tunghai University in Taiwan in 1970 and his PhD in nuclear physics from the University of Pittsburgh in 1975. He worked as a researcher at CEN Saclay, France and the University of Pittsburgh before joining the Physics Division of Los Alamos National Laboratory in 1978. He became a Laboratory Fellow at Los Alamos in 1996. He joined the Department of Physics at the University of Illinois in February 2002. His research interest includes a range of topics in nuclear and particle physics. Peng is a Fellow of the APS. He currently serves as a member of the Division of Nuclear Physics Fellowship Committee. He also served recently as a member of the APS Committee of International Freedom of Scientists and the APS Forum on International Physics. He is currently on the Program Advisory Committee of the J-PARC accelerator facility in Japan and the Advisory Committee of the Institute of Physics, Academia Sinica, and served recently as a member of the Program Advisory Committee of the Jefferson Lab. He just completed a two-year term as the President of the Overseas Chinese Physics Association.
International Councillor
Se-Jung Oh Seoul National University, Korea
Se-Jung Oh received his PhD in physics from Stanford University in 1982, and worked at Xerox Palo Alto Research Center until he returned to Seoul National University, his Alma Mater (BS in physics in 1975). He is now a full professor at Department of Physics and Astronomy, director of the Center for Strongly Correlated Materials Research (CSCMR), and has been serving as the Dean of College of Natural Sciences since 2004. He is also the chairperson of the Association of Deans of college of natural sciences in Korea, vice president of the Korean Physical Society, an executive board member of the Korean Vacuum Society, and a full member of the Korean Academy of Science and Technology. He is currently a member of the International Advisory Board (1998-2007) of the Vacuum Ultraviolet Radiation Physics (VUV), and has served as a member or a chairperson of the organizing or program committees of various international conferences. He also served as a foreign guest editor for the Journal of the Physical Society of Japan (2004-2005). S.-J. Oh’s research interest focuses on the study of electronic structures of strongly correlated electron systems, especially transition metal compounds and rare-earth materials. He has also been quite active in advising Korean government on science and technology policies. Early on he served as a member of the Presidential Commission for the 21st Century of Korea in the committee of science, technology and environments (’89-’94), and later became a member of the Presidential Advisory Council on Science and Technology in Korea and served for 3 terms between 1999-2006. He is currently a member of the Committee for the Promotion of Basic Research in Korean government. He also spent much effort for the public understanding of science and the promotion of science education.
Sabyasachi (Shobo) Bhattacharya Tata Institute of Fundamental Research
Sabyasachi (Shobo) Bhattacharya is an experimental condensed matter physicist. He is currently Director of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), Mumbai, India and a Senior Professor in its Department of Condensed Matter Physics and Materials Science. Bhattacharya received his undergraduate education in India at Presidency College, Kolkata and University of Delhi and his PhD in physics in 1978 from Northwestern University. He spent his post-doctoral years at the University of Rhode Island, Francis Bitter National Magnet Laboratory and as a James Franck Fellow at the University of Chicago. Subsequently, he worked at Exxon Corporate Research, New Jersey and at the NEC Research Institute, Princeton. In 2002 he left NEC, where he was a NEC Fellow, to join TIFR. He has also been a frequent visitor at the International Centre of Theoretical Physics in Trieste over the last two decades. His research activities over the years include complex fluids such as liquid crystals, micelles, microemulsions and glass forming liquids, as well as dynamics of disordered condensed matter systems such as vortex matter in superconductors, sliding charge density waves and glassy systems in general. His current research interests include scanning probe studies of domain wall dynamics in systems such as ferroelectrics, ferromagnets and multiferroics, as well as optical tweezer-based studies of complex fluids. Bhattacharya is a fellow of the APS and of the National Science Academy, India. He also serves as a member on the Commission on Structure and Dynamics of Condensed Matter of the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP), the editorial board of Reports on Progress in Physics of the Institute of Physics, UK, the Scientific Advisory Committee to the Cabinet, Government of India and the Basic Sciences Steering Committee of the Planning Commission, Government of India.
