Texas-Size March Meeting Heads for Dallas

The March Meeting of the American Physical Society is coming to the Dallas Convention Center in Dallas, Texas from March 21 through the 25, 2011. The yearly meeting is the largest annual meeting of physicists in the United States and will feature more than 100 invited sessions, 550 contributed sessions, over 7,000 papers presented, and more than 7,500 people attending. The meeting highlights the latest research from the APS divisions of Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics; Biological Physics; Chemical Physics; Computational Physics; Condensed Matter Physics; Fluid Dynamics; Materials Physics; Physics of Beams; and Polymer Physics, as well as the topical groups on Statistical and Nonlinear Physics, Magnetism and its Applications, and Quantum Information.

In addition to the extensive scientific program, other fun and engaging events and activities are slated for the meeting. Several celebratory sessions will be sponsored by DCMP, DMP and the Forum on the History of Physics in recognition of 100 years since the discovery of superconductivity. The day before the meeting kicks off, tutorial sessions will be held on the hottest topics in physics, including, spintronics, complex oxides, topological insulators, microfluidics, graphene, new directions in biological physics, quantum simulation, computing with atoms, and GPU programming applied to condensed matter physics. At the same time, workshops on polymers, education, industry, and careers will be held as well. Attendees interested in enrolling in a tutorial or workshop can sign up when registering for the meeting. The deadline to register for the meeting is January 14.

At the APS Prizes and Awards Ceremony on Monday evening, awards will be presented to physicists who have made outstanding contributions to their fields. After the awards are given, the prize ceremony segues directly into the meeting’s welcome reception where attendees can mingle and enjoy refreshments.

Following the evening’s welcome reception, Barbara Jones of Penn State University will host a special physics community outreach session about how to make science appealing to children. Her talk titled, “Small Wonders: Bringing Nano to the Public Through Museum Partnership” will discuss ways that academic institutions and museums can partner together to excite and interest kids in the growing field of nanotechnology.

Tuesday evening, the divisions of Chemical Physics, Computational Physics, Condensed Matter Physics, and Materials Physics will host a reception at the Hyatt Reunion Hotel, honoring their newly named fellows and award winners. Also on Tuesday evening is the student reception organized by the APS and Forum on Graduate Student Affairs.

At the meeting, students may sign up for Wednesday afternoon’s Lunch with the Experts. There, graduate students will be able to lunch with an expert on a topic of their choice and participate in informal, freewheeling conversation.

APS and the Society of Physics Students have teamed up to put on several events for undergraduates. There will be student oral and poster sessions, awards, and a “design your own t-shirt” contest complete with prizes. For the career-minded undergraduate, panels on careers and graduate schools will be held. Travel grants of up to $1,000 are available to students presenting contributed papers at the meeting.

As many as 130 exhibitors will have booths in the exhibit hall, representing everything from laboratory equipment and software to book publishers and education suppliers. The exhibit hall will be open from 10 a.m. through 5 p.m. Monday and Tuesday, and from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Wednesday. Wine and cheese will be served on Monday and Tuesday from 4 to 5 p.m.

As always, at APS’s Contact Congress booth, attendees are invited at any time to send a letter to their member of Congress about the importance of federal research funding.