Dr Swapan Chattopadhyay, appointed to the Cockroft Chair and the Inaugural Directorship of The Cockroft Institute in the United Kingdom

Swapan Chattopadhyay, associate director of the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility in Newport News, VA and a world leader in accelerator physics, has been appointed to UK's Sir John Cockroft Chair of Physics at the Universities of Liverpool, Manchester and Lancaster and the Inaugural Director of The Cockroft Institute of Accelerator Science and Technology from March 19th, 2007. He will also serve as a principal member of the steering committees for the flagship, “fourth generation”, light source, 4GLS, which is now in preparation at the Daresbury Science and Innovation Campus.

Swapan Chattopadhyay has just been elected to serve for a term of four years 2007-2010 as the Vice-Chair, Chair-Elect, Chair and Past-Chair of the American Physical Society’s Division of Physics of Beams. He is a Fellow of the APS, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the UK Institute of Physics.

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Internatonal Workshop on Complex Dynamics of Physiological Systems: From Heart to Brain to be held in Presidency College, Kolkata between February 12-14, 2007

The workshop is devoted to current trends and challenges of research in complex dynamics of physiological systems, especially heart and brain, as well as new promising approaches from the theory of dynamical systems.

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FIP receptions are regarded as a largely social event that focuses on the connections between the APS and the so-called expatriate organizations. Issues of joint interest such as journal transfer to institutions in various nations, broad discussion about current and future FIP initiatives, etc would be addressed.

The APS elected officials are expected to be present in this gathering.

The reception will include refreshments. The reception will be on Tuesday, March 6. The room details will be announced later.

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Professor B.N. Meera is the 2006-2007 APS Kilambi Ramavataram Fellow at Kansas State

Professor B.N. Meera of the Department of Physics, Bangalore University, has been selected to be the next American Physical Society - Kilambi Ramavataram Fellow. Meera arrived inthe US in Fall 2006 and is spending 9 months in the Department of Physics at Kansas State University. Meera specializes in physics education. Her primary focus is on the undergraduate level. She will be mentored by Professor Dean Zollman, Distinguished Professor of Physics and Department Head at Kansas State University. If you wish to invite or host Meera and help enrich her professional development in the US in Physics Education this academic year, please send her an email to meeri_bn@yahoo.com.

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The Indo-US Science and Technology Forum

For those who are interested in organizing Indo-US workshops and conferences in India the "Indo-US Science & Technology Forum" may be worth looking into. This body aims to facilitate, seed and promote collaborations in science, technology, engineering & biomedical research.

The Future of Space Exploration: Solutions to Earthly Problems?

Professor Supriya Chakravarti of Boston University informs us about a major upcoming symposium titled, "Future of Space Explorations - Solutions to Earth's Problems? to be held between April 12-14, 2007 at Boston University. Please visit the symposium website for details.

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Arvind Gupta and his toys

Arvind Gupta heads the Muktangan Science Exploratorium for children at the Inter University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics, Pune. Arvind is well known for his work with toys to teach children about scientific concepts. His work is now summarized in a nice video. You can download the video please go here. Arvind would appreciate any voluntary donations you may wish to make to support his efforts.

To learn more about Arvind Gupta's path breaking work and about the resources he has put together over the years please visit

http://arvindguptatoys.com/.

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Professor Lal Jain retires from SUNY Buffalo Physics after 52 years

Prof. Piyare Lal Jain was born in the Province of Punjab in India, and received his B.A. in Mathematics and Physics in 1945, and his M.A. in Mathematics from Punjab University. He did PhD in physics at Michigan State in

Nobelist Martin Perl recently spoke to honor P.L. Jain

Professor Vijay R. Pandharipande (1940-2006)

Vijay R. Pandharipande

Professor Vijay R. Pandharipande, Donald Biggar Willett Professor of Engineering and Center for Advanced Study Professor of Physics, University of Illinois at Urbana, passed away in January 2006. We will soon carry an article on Professor Pandharipande. Professor Gordon Baym has agreed to write this article.

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1954 and joined the University of Buffalo, then a private institution. He was promoted to associate professor in 1960, and to professor in 1966. Professor Jain ceased active teaching and service responsibilities in 2002 to become a Research Professor for a period of 3 years, and in part to take care of his ailing spouse. He retired formally in 2005 as Professor Emeritus. He remains active. His recent studies of relativistic heavy-ion collisions in nuclear emulsions at CERN have uncovered signals for low-mass neutral particles decaying to electron-positron pairs with very short lifetimes smaller than 1/10,000000000000 seconds: see J. Phys. G: Nucl. Part. Phys. 34, 129-138 (2007).

Piyare Lal Jain

The many honors he has received include election to Fellowship in the APS and the award of the Hind Rattan (Jewel of India), which is the highest award bestowed on persons of Indian origin.

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APS Forum on International Physics joint reception with ACIPA, Association of Korean Physics Association (AKPA), and Organization of Chinese Physicists in America (OCPA)

ACIPA will be a co-organizer/co-sponsor of a joint reception in the 2007 APS March Meeting in Denver, Colorado. The goals, objectives and activities of ACIPA will be mentioned and the 2007 Award winners will be introduced.

A Video on Professor Amal Kumar Raychaudhuri (1923-2005)

A personal note from Surajit Sen - Amal Raychaudhuri (shown in the adjacent figure) was my professor when I was a student at Presidency College, Calcutta, between 1979 and 1982. Famous to most for what is known as the "Raychaudhuri equation" in cosmology, Amal Babu was one incredible professor, who was quirky yet personable, inspirational and serious yet with a subtle sense of humor and someone who showed us that it is possible to do great theoretical physics pretty much anywhere if one wants to do so.

Professor Naresh Dadhich has sent us a DVD on the life of Professors Amal Raychaudhuri and P.C. Vaidya. This is now available online (this takes a while to download!).