APS News

August/September 2016 (Volume 25, Number 8)

2016 APS General Election Results

By Rachel Gaal

With the polls closed and the results tallied, the 2016 APS general election winners will begin their terms on January 1, 2017. David Gross of the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) has been elected the new APS Vice President; three other winners will fill the roles of Chair-Elect of the Nominating Committee, International Councilor, and General Councilor.

Gross has been an APS member for over 50 years. A central figure in particle physics and string theory, he shared the 2004 Nobel Prize in Physics for the discovery of asymptotic freedom, which led to the formulation of quantum chromodynamics, the quantum field theory of the strong nuclear force. Previously the director of the UCSB Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics, he now serves as the UCSB Chancellor’s Chair Professor of Theoretical physics. “I am honored, flattered, and delighted to take on the position as Vice President,” Gross commented.

The new Chair-Elect of the nominating committee is David Meyerhofer of Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). Currently the Chair of the APS Division of Plasma Physics, Meyerhofer is actively involved in high energy density and plasma physics, serving as the Physics Division Leader of the LANL Experimental Physical Sciences (ADEPS). Before taking his role at LANL, he spent 28 years at the University of Rochester as Professor of Physics and Mechanical Engineering; there he held a variety of management positions at the university’s Laboratory for Laser Energetics.

Marta Losada of Universidad Antonio Nariño (UAN), Colombia, was chosen as International Councilor. The president of UAN since 2010, Losada is actively involved in higher education, having served as Commissioner of the CONACES Engineering, Architecture, Mathematics and Physical Sciences section of the Colombian Ministry of Education and Research Policy from 2006 to 2009. Her work in high energy physics took Losada to CERN as a postdoctoral fellow from 1997 to 1999, and she chaired the organizing committee for the CERN — Latin-America School of High Energy Physics in Columbia in 2009 and 2014.

Andrea Liu of the University of Pennsylvania was elected the new General Councilor. As a condensed matter theorist, Liu conducts research in several areas, focusing on the role of physics in other scientific disciplines, such as physical chemistry, chemical engineering, and materials science. Named the Hepburn Professor of Physics at the University of Pennsylvania in 2004, Liu is known for her work in soft matter. She has led the development of the theory of jamming, through which a wide variety of disordered materials can exhibit the properties of solids.

David J. Gross

David Gross

David D. Meyerhofer

David Meyerhofer

Marta Losada

Marta Losada

Andrea Liu

Andrea Liu

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Editor: David Voss
Staff Science Writer: Rachel Gaal
Contributing Correspondent: Alaina G. Levine
Art Director and Special Publications Manager: Kerry G. Johnson
Publication Designer and Production: Nancy Bennett-Karasik