As this newsletter illustrates, the past year has been a busy one for the accelerator health physics community and plans are in the works for another productive year to come. I've provided the highlights below; please read on in the newsletter for the full details.
The Accelerator Section's annual report (see "The President's Message") summarizes the past year's activities. Details of these activities include the great news that Nolan Hertel has been named a fellow of the Health Physics Society (see Bob Casey's note). Congratulations to Nolan!
Also in the past year, Accelerator Section members continued to contribute their expertise to the development of guidance documents. This is demonstrated by Ralph Thomas's presentation on recent recommendations by the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) and by comments on the proposed ICRP 92 report provided by an Accelerator Section working group comprising Bob Casey, Alberto Fasso, Don Cossairt, Nolan Hertel, and Sayed Rokni.
Our correspondents have been busy as well. This newsletter presents reports from Fermi National Accelerator Lab (Fermilab), where a new lab director and progress on two major Fermilab experiments, MINOS and MiniBooNE, have been making headlines, and from Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC), where section members have been busy documenting the SHIELD11 computer code.
As for the coming year, Lorraine Marceau-Day gives us food for thought about the future of accelerator health physics training. She brings us news as well of the upcoming 2005 Synchrotron Radiation Instrumentation Conference to be held at the Center for Advanced Microstructures and Devices (CAMD).
Finally, I'm happy to announce that John Ahlquist, the Northern California Chapter of the Health Physics Society's (NCCHPS's) immediate past president, is spearheading an initiative to host the 2008 Health Physics Society (HPS) midyear meeting in Oakland, CA. The topic of the proposed meeting is radiation-generating devices. Please join me in wishing John good luck with the HPS Venues Committee--the success of this initiative will benefit all!