Beller, Marshak Lectureships to Enhance March and April Meetings
Two named APS lectureships will bring distinguished foreign scientists to speak at the 2009 March and April meetings. The speakers were selected by the APS Committee on International Scientific Affairs (CISA), from nominations submitted by various APS units.
The Beller Lectureship was endowed by Esther Hoffman Beller for the purpose of bringing distinguished physicists from abroad as invited speakers at APS meetings. The lectureship provides support for speakers at the March and April meetings.
The Marshak Lectureship, endowed by Ruth Marshak in honor of her late husband and former APS president, Robert Marshak, provides travel support for physicists from developing countries or Eastern Europe invited to speak at APS meetings.
Two Beller lectures will be given at the March Meeting. Mikhail I. Dyakonov of the Université Montpellier II, France will present a talk on the spin Hall effect. Dyakonov was nominated for the Beller Lectureship by the Topical Group on Magnetism and its Applications. The other March Meeting Beller lecturer is Samuel A. Safran, of the Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel. He will give a talk on “Active response of biological cells to mechanical stress.” Safran was nominated for the Beller Lectureship by the Topical Group on Statistical and Nonlinear Physics.
At the April Meeting, a Beller Lecture will be given by Christopher Llewellyn-Smith, of Oxford University, United Kingdom. Llewellyn-Smith, a former Director-General of CERN, was nominated by the Forum on Physics and Society.
The 2009 Marshak lecturer will be Karimat El Sayed, of Ain Shams University, Egypt. At the March Meeting, she will deliver a lecture on Women in Physics in Egypt and the Arab Worlds. El Sayed was nominated by the Forum on International Physics.