Professor
North Carolina State University
While APS has the word "American" in its name, it is in fact a physics organization that brings together physicists from many nations. These global physicists in turn have many different backgrounds – scientific and personal – and bring both aspects to their participation. In order to provide professional support for such a group requires broad expertise among the APS leadership, spanning far beyond physics research.
This is a daunting task: our leaders navigate the finances of communicating our science in an age of changing journal publication models, create engaging conferences that are robust to travel challenges, provide structural and individual support to members of communities who have not always been welcomed, and support educational programs which reach far younger than our current membership. When global crises threaten to upend our ability to do physics or even live in peace, our leadership responds by working with folks who have power beyond APS.
My goal through the nominating committee will be to recruit the diverse talent needed to meet the expansive and ever-expanding goals so that our membership can be confident their careers are well-supported by APS. So, if you've read this far, I have a request to you. Look around your department and your research community: do you know some talented people who can help meet these needs? Let me know about them, and what they'd bring to APS's main leadership roles.
Karen Daniels