Welcome Words

Welcome to IPS 2014

Welcome to the 60th annual IPS meeting. We did our best to arrange an interesting and diverse conference program. I would like to thank the members of the scientific organizing committee (Amnon Aharony, Yuval Garini, Eytan Grosfeld, Dafne Guetta, Adi Nusser, Yaron Oz, Yaron Silberberg), the help of Shlomo Nahum (administration) and Geva Arwas (assistance), and the daily support by our IPS treasurer Yuval Garini and our IPS administrator Daniella Gabrielovitch-Margalit. We acknowledge the supporting companies and the extra funds from the Ben-Gurion University President, from the Rector,  and from the Dean of the Natural Sciences. We highly appreciate our colleagues who volunteered to chair parallel sessions, and all of you for coming.

Doron Cohen, Chairrman of IPS 2014

From the President of the IPS

On behalf of the Israel Physical Society (IPS), I welcome you to the 60th annual General Assembly (2014), held this year at Ben Gurion University. The organizing committee, chaired by Doron Cohen, has put together an exciting program, and I wish us all a stimulating meeting.

As you all know, the IPS is a non-profit association, whose aim is to stimulate physics research and teaching in Israel. In order to enhance the IPS standing, activities and collaborations at the national and international level, we have recently set three goals for the IPS, which we will try to pursue in the coming years.

Our first and very ambitious goal is to initiate a norm for all physicists in Israel, graduate students, faculty members and scientists at the industry, to register as members of the IPS.  This will enhance significantly the standing of the IPS. It will allow us to establish strong relations with supporting companies, stabilize and increase the IPS budget and its activities, and reduce the registration fees. It will position the IPS as an important institution, such that its opinion on matters related to physics in Israel, ranging from high school physics teaching curriculum to the state budgeting of physics research, will carry weight.

Our second goal is to enhance the activities and participation of physics graduate students in the IPS. We believe that an early  strong involvement of the next generation of scientists in the IPS will provide a boost to the IPS and its goals. We have added Muhammad Erew, a student's representative, to the IPS management committee, and will open an IPS forum for students' discussions. As in the previous two years, we will host a meeting for students at the final stages of their undergraduate or beginning of Master studies. This year, in addition to presentations of physicists from the academy, we invited physicists from the industry to talk about other aspects of physics research. The meeting will take place at Akko, 30/4-1/5, 2015. We also started a news program, where the IPS supports graduate students joint meetings initiated by them, in Israel.

Our third goal is to enhance the relations with the APS and the EPS, and we are working towards initiating joint collaborations, on which we will report during the year.

Let me end by wishing all of us an enjoyable and productive year. Our 61th General Assembly will be held at Bar Ilan University.

Yaron Oz, President of the IPS