Since the beginning of November, the European Physical Society has had two secretaries general for the first time in its history.  David Lee who will retire as Secretary General in March 2023 and Anne Pawsey who has just arrived in Mulhouse and will continue to run the society after this hand-over period.

Anne Pawsey joins the society from the University of Göttingen, where she coordinated the teaching and e-learning of the Max Planck School Matter to Life. Dr Pawsey is a soft matter physicist who received her PhD from the University of Edinburg in 2014. Since then, she has worked at the interface between physics and industry as a researcher and in research management, coordinated the Scottish Universities Physical Alliance Graduate School and she spent the pandemic ensuring that the Matter to Life Network and the Göttingen Physics Faculty could continue to teach online and in a hybrid format with handwritten equations, and demonstration experiments viewable by all participants.

Dr Pawsey has been involved in physics societies since her undergraduate days, when she was the secretary of IAPS and one of the organisers of ICPS. A science communicator, she enjoys revealing the often surprisingly complex physics underlying everyday phenomena, and engaging adults who feel that physics is “not for them” by creating interactive shows designed for pubs, bars or music festivals.  After a fellowship at the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology she has some experience in communicating with policy makers.

David would like to welcome Anne to EPS, she is looking forward to working with the EPS community.

Anne Pawsey in front of the EPS headquarters in Mulhouse

Washington, Mulhouse, Trieste, 29 August 2022 -- The American Physical Society (APS), the European Physical Society (EPS) and the International Centre for Theoretical Physics (UNESCO-ICTP), in honour of the International Year of Basic Science for Sustainable Development (IYBSSD 2022), announce the initiation of the joint APS-ICTP-EPS Travel Award Fellowship Programme (ATAP). ATAP is aimed at active early career scientists from developing countries, supporting short-term research visits to laboratories in Europe and North America.

This programme grants the major costs of two-month visits for young scientists, up to $5,000. Applicants just need to send their complete CV including publications, at least one letter of reference, a letter of agreement and endorsement from the host laboratory and a 1-page budget management plan evaluating the travel and local expenses. The materials must be sent to itlabs@ictp.it by 28 February in the year of the intended Fellowship.

The goal of ATAP is to enable selected recipients to strengthen opportunities to conduct world-class research, and establish collaborations to enhance their scientific careers. The recipients may return to the laboratories of their alma mater to use laboratory facilities they are familiar with and re-connect with colleagues.

We are happy to announce the selected recipients of the 2022 ATAP programme:

Dr. Azam KARDAN, Damghan University, Iran, who will spend two months at the MAX IV Laboratory of Lund University, Sweden, to work with Profs. Martin Bech and Pablo Villanueva Perez on tomographic acquisitions using machine learning;

Dr. Llinersy URANGA PINA, University of Havana, Cuba, going to the University Paul Sabatier in Toulouse, France, where she will work with Prof. Dr. Christoph Meier and Dr. Nadine Halberstadt on materials science;

Dr. Ausama Ismael KHUDIAR, Institute of Materials Research/Department of Sciences and Technology of the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research, Republic of Iraq, who will go to the Eberhard Karls Universität in Tübingen, Germany, to work with Dr. Nicolae Barsan on gas sensors.

Author: Petra Rudolf

Dr. Jorge Mario Salazar Rios (picture) is the first grant awardee of the new International Training and Research (INTR) Programme, set up at the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) in Trieste in collaboration with the EPS.

The aim of the programme is to support researchers from developing countries who got their PhD in Europe and are now in the process of building up research facilities in their home country. By awarding them grants allowing them to come back for 1-2 months/year to the lab where they did their PhD project, these young researchers will be able stay scientifically productive while in the startup phase.

The INTR Programme is currently supported by donations from the EPS, the Optical Society (OSA) and SPIE, the International Society for Optics and Photonics, the latter two organisations providing  dedicated funding for fellowships in the area of optics and photonics. The hope is that other learned societies and foundations will decide to support the INTR Programme and that EPS member societies will convince the governments of their countries. While the INTR programme is currently focused on organising short research internships by former PhD students of European institutions, it can be extended both geographically, and also to provide longer training research internships for researchers from developing countries who have not done a PhD in Europe, if the corresponding funding can be recruited.

Dr. Jorge Mario Salazar Rios

WASHINGTON, 30 November 2017- OSA

The Optical Society (OSA) and the Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft (DPG) today announce that the 2018 Herbert Walther Award will be presented to Gerd Leuchs, Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light, Erlangen and University of Erlangen-Nürnberg, Germany. The award was given to Leuchs ‘for his pioneering and widespread scientific contributions ranging from ultrasmall focii of light to nonlinear optics, squeezed states of light and their application in metrology and quantum information, as well as for a continuing commitment to the physics community, quantum optics and his students and team members.’

 “Gerd’s many research accomplishments are well known throughout the scientific community,” said Liz Rogan, CEO, The Optical Society. “Dr. Walther was known for his leadership and Gerd has modeled this quality though his effective connections with colleagues and organizations respresenting all aspects of the science eco-system.”

 Professor at the Department of Physics with the University Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany, and director of the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light in Erlangen, Gerd Leuchs stated, “I have dedicated my life’s work to researching nano photonics and quantum optics, optical communication and quantum information. An early influence on my career was Herbert Walther and I would like to thank The Optical Society and DPG for this great honor in Herbert’s name.”

Leuchs’ Division at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light focuses on the three-dimensional vector patterns of optical modes and on their quantized excitation. The work spurred a worldwide increase of research into radially polarized and related light modes that has led to projects on the transverse angular momentum of light, on localization of particles and on non-factorable mode patterns resembling entanglement and including applications. In 1979, Leuchs' observation of photon anti bunching and of squeezed light in second harmonic generation in 1990 and has led to numerous on-going projects on quantum communication. He was elected Foreign Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences. He has also been an Alexander von Humboldt Lecturer in Russia and chair of the ICONO/LAT conference. Leuchs studied Physics at the University of Cologne and received his PhD degree from the University of Munich where Prof. Herbert Walther was his scientific advisor and later a colleague. Leuchs is a member of the Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, German Physical Society, European Physical Society, German Society of Applied Optics, The Optical Society, Institute of Physics (London), and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He has more than 200 publications in scientific journals and is editor of three books.

Established in 2007, the Walther Award is named in honor of Dr. Herbert Walther for the seminal influence of his groundbreaking innovations in quantum optics and atomic physics, and for his wide-ranging contributions to the international scientific community.