Bahcall Elected Vice President of APS

On 1 January 2004, John Bahcall of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, will be the new vice president of the American Physical Society. Bahcall, who will become the society’s presidentelect in 2005 and president in 2006, succeeds Marvin Cohen (see Physics Today, November 2002, page 88 ). Helen Quinn is the society’s president for 2004 (see Physics Today, December 2001, page 70 ).

Bahcall received all of his professional degrees in physics: his AB from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1956; his MS from the University of Chicago in 1957; and his PhD in 1961 from Harvard University. After spending two years as a research fellow at Indiana University, Bahcall taught physics at Caltech, where he remained for the next eight years.

Since 1971, Bahcall has been affiliated with the Institute for Advanced Study. He is currently the Richard Black Professor of Natural Sciences there and a visiting lecturer with the rank of professor at Princeton University. The recipient of numerous honors and awards, Bahcall is a leader within the astrophysics community. He has written or cowritten four books on astrophysics and served as president of the American Astronomical Society (1990–92). When he becomes president of APS, Bahcall will be the first person ever to have held the rank of president in both societies.

In his candidate statement, Bahcall said, “The APS must help members of Congress and the executive branch to understand that the future of our nation depends upon having a strong technological base, which in turn depends upon research and education in the physical sciences. The APS can play a significant role in increasing awareness of the dangers from the spread of weapons of mass destruction and in outreach programs that stimulate scientific literacy and promote interest in scientific activities.” In addition to increasing federal support for physics, Bahcall said that it is important “to join with physicists in industry to reverse the tragic and dangerous decline of physics research in the private sector.”

In other APS election results, Philip Bucksbaum (University of Michigan, Ann Arbor) was selected as the new chair-elect of the nominating committee, and the society’s new international councillor will be Sukekatsu Ushioda (Tokoku University in Sendai, Japan). Evelyn Hu (University of California, Santa Barbara) and Art Ramirez (Lucent Technologies’ Bell Labs in Murray Hill, New Jersey) are the newly elected general councillors of the society.