Physics Dept. Head, Heidi Schellman has been chosen as Chair of Commission of Commission 11 of the International Union for Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP)

US IUPAP representatives in 2015. Beverly Berger, Aihua Xie, Kennedy Reed (IUPAP president-elect) and Heidi Schellman. Courtesy APS news.

IUPAP is an international organization formed in 1922 with the mission “to assist in the worldwide development of physics, to foster international cooperation in physics, and to help in the application of physics toward solving problems of concern to humanity.” In addition to its ongoing role in assuring international cooperation in Physics,  IUPAP is occasionally asked, as the worldwide organization for the field, to endorse international agreements, such as the proposed modifications of the standard for SI units and C11’s reports on authorship standards in particle physics.

Commission C11 is the body concerned with Particle and Fields.  C11 oversees the major international conferences in the field and sponsors the International Committee on Particle Accelerators and a Young Scientist Prize awarded every two years.

See  outgoing IUPAP President Bruce McKellar’s recent article in Physics Today for a longer explanation of IUPAP and its work in international development and equity.  Or check out their website at http://iupap.org

The work of OSU physics graduate student Lee Aspitarte was featured as a Scientific Highlight on the American Institute of Physics website. Lee’s recent experiments in Ethan Minot’s lab provide new insights about nanoscale pn-junctions. Nanoscale pn-junctions are a promising technology for maximizing the efficiency of light-to-electricity conversion.