Accelerator Section Logo

From the President

Scott Schwahn



I am excited about this upcoming year in serving you as president of the section. I hope to do as good a job as James Liu did. My main goal in this upcoming year is to increase interest in the section by both its current membership and hopefully by an increasing membership. In order to do this, I will be contacting each of you to find out what you want to see in the section. I hope that whatever interests you can be provided.

Our meeting in Cleveland went well, although with the usual low attendance. This situation was exacerbated by the Department of Energy travel restrictions, which also resulted in the cancellation of two of our speakers' presentations. We were delighted, however, to have Dr. Takashi Nakamura speak to us as a G. William Morgan lecturer. He provided us with the current status of Japanese accelerator radiation safety.

As president of the section, and after appropriate review of Health Physics Society restrictions regarding lobbying, I intend to contact my congressional representatives regarding the travel restrictions and see if I can have any effect. I will forward a copy of my letter to the Accelerator Section members so that you can act upon it as well if you'd like.

The Accelerator Section board of directors had a great breakfast meeting in Cleveland. We learned from the out-going treasurer, Carter Ficklen, that the section account balance is just about $6000. Linnea Wahl, the newsletter editor, gave a summary of her activities. We met Tosh Ushino, one of the new members of the board of directors. We discussed several issues of interest to the section, one of which is the possibility of hosting a Health Physics Society summer school on accelerator radiation safety. The minutes from the board's meeting will be sent to members of the Accelerator Section in July.

If you get the opportunity, please thank James Liu for his service as president, Carter Ficklen for serving as treasurer, Linnea Wahl for stepping in and continuing to serve as newsletter editor, and Marcia Torres and Mike Grissom for serving as directors.