Thomas W. Hogan Professor of Physics
California Institute of Technology
It is an exciting and challenging time to be a physicist; physics is playing a key role in addressing many important issues facing mankind, whereas the increasingly complicated geopolitical environment, international conflicts, and the pandemic in the past two years have adversely affected open global scientific cooperation and free exchanges. APS has been a leading organization, not only in the US but also in the world, to promote physics research and education, advocate broadening participation, encourage and facilitate international exchanges and cooperation, and develop partnerships with government, industry, and philanthropy. This leadership role is expected to become ever more important moving forward. In this context, an APS General Councilor with global vision, connections, and experiences as well as strong conviction to broadening participation can help steer APS policies and activities to navigate challenges and to advance APS missions.
I have strong track records of services on many US and international (e.g., Canada, China, Germany, Japan, Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, Turkey) committees and organizations, including playing a key role in establishing several bilateral and multi-lateral international cooperation programs (e.g., US-Taiwan, US-Korea-China-Turkey). My active international academic and industrial collaborations as well as my service on the NSF Advisory Committee for International Science and Engineering have helped shape policies for meaningful and mutually beneficial research collaborations without compromising important issues of intellectual property and national security. I have coauthored three biannual reports to the US Congress as a member of the NSF Committee on Equal Opportunities in Science and Engineering (CEOSE) that contributed to the development of NSF policies and programs for broadening participation. My role as the Fletcher-Jones Foundation Co-Director of the Kavli Nanoscience Institute at Caltech for 6 years provided great opportunities for productive interactions and partnerships with the Kavli Foundation, Moore Foundation and Fletcher-Jones Foundation. Additionally, as an International Academic Advisor for both the Physics Honor Program at Shanghai Jiao Tong University (in Shanghai, China) and the Tsien Excellence in Education Program at Tsinghua University (in Beijing, China), I have had great opportunities to inspire some of the top international talents into pursuing graduate research in the US.
If elected to the General Council, I wish to bring my connections and experiences for international collaborations and broadening participation to APS to ensure that APS continues to promote science research and education worldwide, because I firmly believe that science is without borders, and that many major challenges facing mankind can only be addressed by drawing talents from the entire population and by establishing goodwill international collaborations without compromising national security.
Nai-Chang Yeh