Minutes of the October 2010 DLS Executive Committee Meeting
Grand Ballroom G, Hyatt Hotel, Rochester, New York
October 26, 2010
Present: Warren Warren (chair), Steve Cundiff (chair-elect), Carlos Stroud (vice-chair), Nick Bigelow (past chair), Anne Kelley (secretary-treasurer), Bob Jones (member-at-large), Maria Allegrini (member-at-large)
Warren called the meeting to order at 9:11 am.
The minutes from the May 17, 2010 meeting at CLEO/QELS in San Jose were approved.
Anne presented a treasurer’s report. The net worth of the division has remained relatively flat over the past couple of years due to reduced income from CLEO/QELS and a lower rate of return paid by APS on investments. Our membership is slightly below the 3% of APS nominally required to remain a Division (it is now 2.93%), but this has not changed much in recent years and we have not been under pressure from APS to grow our numbers.
Anne discussed the Student Travel Grant program. The requirements were changed for this meeting to allow students to present at either FiO or LS, as long as they are DLS members. For this meeting there were 13 qualified applicants, but two were eliminated to avoid making more than one award to any given research group. The other 11 were awarded grants ranging from $500 to $350 (total of $5,000 awarded), with slightly larger amounts going to oral versus poster presenters, to LS versus FiO presenters, and to students whose advisors were also DLS members. The committee felt that for the next round (Spring 2011) some preference should be given for QELS versus CLEO presentation and that the person nominating the student should be required to be a DLS member except in some special cases (e.g. international applicants). The committee voted to allocate $5,000 for the student travel grant program for CLEO/QELS next spring.
Anne and Warren reported on the DLS elections. The elections have been delayed by the nominating committee’s difficulty in finding candidates willing to run for APS Councilor. Candidates for Vice-Chair and for the two Executive Committee members-at-large are in place. Several names were suggested as possible candidates for Councilor, and members were asked to send any other suggestions to Warren and/or Nominating Committee chair Mark Raizen.
There was an extensive discussion of the future of CLEO/QELS including guest Kate Kirby (APS Executive Officer) and Hal Metcalf (a previous DLS chair). The meeting, which had been a significant source of revenue for DLS in the past, has recently been in danger of going into the red, for which we would be financially responsible as 1/6 stakeholders in the combined meeting. Nick outlined the recent history of efforts to “rebrand” the meeting to make it more attractive to exhibitors. However, the general sense of the discussion was that the declining importance of CLEO to exhibitors is not likely to be reversed and we should instead focus on trying to reduce costs, in particular to renegotiate the OSA management fee, which is felt to be excessive. One possibility is for much of the management fee to be based on a percentage of net profit after expenses rather than a flat fee. Another possibility is to solicit outside bids to manage the conference. Our current contract expires after the 2011 meeting. Kate, who will be negotiating the new contract, was instructed not to accept a contract that exposes DLS to financial liability. The committee also discussed the possibility of separating QELS from CLEO altogether and running it as a separate meeting or co-located with a different meeting, but the general agreement was that this should be reserved as a potential longer-term solution.
Hal Metcalf (Symposium on Undergraduate Research organizer) reported on that symposium, which is being run as sessions of this meeting. This year 45 students are presenting, and with the symposium immediately after the plenary session, several of the plenary speakers and award winners attended the lunch and poster session with the students. The symposium costs about $30,000 but most of the costs are recouped from grants ($7,000 from NSF this year), corporate sponsors, and the students’ own institutions which support their travel. DLS allocated $8,000 this year but will likely be billed for only a fraction of that. The committee voted to allocate up to $8,000 to the next Symposium on Undergraduate Research to be held in conjunction with FiO/LS in 2011.
Nick reported on JCQE. He is one of the two DLS representatives to JCQE and we need to appoint another. Hailin Wang (Oregon) was suggested, and will be asked.
Kate Kirby also reported on other APS activities. PHYSTECH is a program to increase the number of high school physics teachers who have real training in physics, by working with physics departments which apply for grants from APS. APS received another $6M from NSF to establish more sites; in the last round they funded 6-7 out of 52 applications. APS is also starting a Minority Bridge program whose goal is to double the small number of underrepresented minorities receiving Ph.D.s in physics. Seed money from NSF was used to travel to minority serving institutions to discuss perceptions and barriers with students, and to Ph.D. granting institutions interested in starting bridge programs that might involve post-baccalaureate years or transitional masters programs.
Warren and Kate reported that the NRC is undertaking a second “Harnessing Light” report. The previous one, released in 1998, reported on recent progress and potential future applications in optics, and recommendations for the further growth and vitality of the field. The upcoming study will cost about $1M of which about half has now been garnered, largely from DoD. Oddly, the study is being run by the Materials board of NRC, not the Physics & Astronomy board.
Programming for QELS 2011 was discussed briefly, but this is done by JCQE and DLS has no direct input.
Steve reported on the New Laser Scientists conference which will run Thursday and Friday. 21 speakers are coming, none of whom have requested travel support. Program managers from AFOSR, DOE, and NSF will also attend and have been very enthusiastic about doing so. It is expected to come in under the DLS allocated budget of $5,000. Dan Stamper-Kurn will organize the next symposium in two years, and should be reminded to ask this committee to allocate support.
Bob Boyd and Roseanne Sension, the 2011 LS program chairs, are both attending the planning meeting here as requested by OSA. Warren recommended that they each be allocated up to $450 in travel expenses.
Maria Allegrini discussed the proposal for the UN to designate an upcoming year, most likely 2014 – 2016, as the International Year of Light. This committee voted in Fall 2009 to endorse this action, which is being spearheaded by the European Physical Society. To facilitate this there should be a representative from the U.S. societies, preferably, for political reasons, a U.S. citizen. There was discussion of the best way to proceed and whether APS should be acting alone. Liz Rogan (OSA CEO) said that OSA has been contacted about this effort. IEEE-Photonics and SPIE should also be involved. Steve agreed to contact John Dudley, the principal from the European side, to discuss the best way to move forward.
Guests Chad Stark (OSA meetings manager) and Liz Rogan (OSA CEO) reported on FiO/LS. This year’s numbers (papers and registrations) are comparable to last year’s. Venues have been selected for future years: 2011 San Jose, 2012 Rochester, 2013 Orlando, 2014 Tucson (still tentative), 2015 San Jose, 2016 Rochester (OSA centennial).
Roseanne Sension and Bob Boyd, LS 2011 program chairs, met with the committee. It was thought that having them appointed earlier than in previous years is a good idea and that in the future efforts should be made to appoint them in the spring of the previous year. Steve and Carlos will discuss possible individuals for 2012 program chairs. The committee provided a number of suggestions for topics and symposium organizers to Roseanne and Bob. By this time a quorum was no longer present, so an allocation of funds for invited speaker support for 2011 could not be made. Absent a quorum at that time, the committee voted by e-mail on Oct. 29 to allocate $12,000 to the LS 2011 program chairs to cover speaker registration and/or travel expenses.
Becky Thompson-Flagg (APS head of public outreach) reported on many LaserFest activities. These include PhysicsQuest inquiry-based “mysteries” for K-12, a video contest, SpectraSound snap-together kits that transmit sound via laser pointer, an appearance at the big Comic-Con International conference, LaserFest on the Road teams which have staged visits to six continents, many demonstrations at the huge USA Science and Engineering Festival on the Washington Mall, and the web site, which receives about 15000 visitors per month. Warren proposed that when LaserFest ends, the content of the web site be maintained by DLS. Warren volunteers to take this position initially, but eventually it should become a long-term position akin to the Newsletter editor. The estimated cost to maintain the web site is $10,000 per year. APS Central has already offered to cover half of this amount, and Warren expects the other half can be raised from corporate donors in exchange for “advertising” on the site. If there should be a shortfall, DLS is asked to make it up. The committee approved expending up to $5,000 per year to maintain the LaserFest web site.
Anne initiated a brief discussion of whether the DLS Fellows should be given the option of receiving their awards at CLEO/QELS or FiO/LS. Currently, if they can’t come to LS they receive their certificates and pins in the mail. It was felt that since DLS has so few Fellows anyway, it would not look good to have an even smaller number of presentations spread over two meetings. It was decided to maintain LS as the only meeting at which DLS presents Fellows awards.
The meeting was adjourned about 3:50 pm.