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AAS Division on Dynamical Astronomy
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The change of officers for the DDA on July 1, as mandated by our recently-revised By-Laws, has brought several new faces to our organization, but also several old faces who have returned in new roles. After a twelve-year stint as Secretary, Marc Murison has stepped down to be replaced by Alice Monet. But we will continue to benefit from Marc's long experience, as he assumes a new role on the DDA Committee. Due to unexpected resignations, both the Nominating Committee and Brouwer Award Selection Committee have new chairs, in the persons of Alan Harris and Steve Unwin. Alan, Alice and Steve have all served previously in several roles, including DDA Chair, so we can be confident that these positions are in good hands. 2008/9 was an especially trying year for the past-Chair, Michael Efroimsky, the DDA Committee and for the Nominating Commitee, chaired by Lea Athanassoula, who had to deal with these extraordinary replacements in addition to the regular slate of candidates for election. We owe them all our sincere thanks for arranging such a smooth transition, which probably went unnoticed by many members until the Annual Meeting in May! Thanks also to Ken Seidelmann, who generously took on the position of Acting Vice-chair last October when Bill van Altena stepped down.
Looking ahead, we are still searching for a replacement for our long-serving Treasurer, Peter Shelus, who has agreed to stay on for one more year as Acting Treasurer. Pete has "owned" this job since 1978, and with the Division's books now in good shape this is an excellent time for a volunteer to step forward. If you are interested, please contact Al Harris or another member of the Nominating Committee.
Lastly, I should point out that, while I also served as Chair in
2004/5, there is no truth to the rumor that in future DDA Chairs will
simply be recycled every 5 years!
Phil Nicholson, DDA Chair
It has been another year of our Division's work. As ever, the key event of the DDA year was our annual meeting, which this time was held back-to-back and at the same location with a kindred conference, a Symposium of the International Astronomical Union, "Relativity in Fundamental Astronomy: Dynamics, Reference Frames, and Data Analysis".
Although both the financial crisis and the 2008 meeting took a toll on the DDA treasury, the fiscal discipline wherewith the said double conference was held has reduced the impact. The DDA Meeting shows $1,771.00 surplus, while the IAU Symposium shows $8,986.90. The surplus from the DDA Meeting will, by default, go to the DDA Treasury. At the IAU's kind permission, the surplus from the IAU Symposium, too, will be forwarded to the DDA. All in all: $10,757.90.
This gives me a pleasant opportunity to deeply thank Kevin Marvel and his AAS team, who provided excellent logistical support both to the IAU Symposium and the DDA Meeting, and who applied for it such small charges, that at the end of the day both conferences generated a surplus. Our special gratitude goes to the past Acting Vice Chair of the DDA, P. Kenneth Seidelmann, who chaired the Scientific Program Committee for the DDA Meeting, and also co-chaired (with Sergei Klioner) the Scientific Program Committee for the IAU Symposium. Last, and by no means least, I wish to thank everyone who participated in these wonderful conferences.
Another big issue of the year was the activity around the planned Astronomy and Astrophysics Decadal Survey. The DDA submitted, both to the NRC and to the Chair of the Survey, a letter endorsing several candidates who might serve on the Decadal Survey Committee. Unfortunately, none of our proposed candidates was appointed to the Committee. In his polite response to our request, a certain official wrote to me that, "The process for selecting the committee was long and involved many people and much review for balance along many dimensions and conflict of interest according to NRC procedures." To keep said balance, and to avoid whatever conflicts of interest, the Committee was shaped largely of members of the HEAD division of the AAS, with Scott Tremaine being the only DDA member included and with Jonathan Lunine being the only DPS member included. (Although the AAS President John Huchra is a member of all the divisions, I count him as a HEAD member, in accordance with his present research interests.)
If we are to change the tide, we have to become more agressive in advertising our areas of research, and to explain to our colleagues and to grant-giving bodies and to the general public why our research is of importance to astronomy in general. This year, the DDA endorsed two white papers: "A proposal for a renewed research thrust in Dynamical Astronomy" by D. Scheeres, T. Statler et al., and "A proposal for further research efforts in ground-based Astrometry" by T. Henry et al. I wish to sincerely thank everyone who contributed to these white papers. May I hope that these white papers mark the beginning of a broader collective effort by dynamical astronomers and by astrometrists in the struggle for truly balanced policies, a fairer attitude, and more adequate funding.
On this note, may I wish to all DDAers a fruitful scientific year. If everything goes as planned, our next annual meeting should be held in Boston on 26 - 29 April 2010, and I very much hope to see all of you there.
Michael Efroimsky, Past Chair of the DDA
You do not have to be a member of the AAS or DDA to nominate. We seek a wide range of award candidates differing in age, gender, nationality, occupation, field of interest, and scientific and technical contributions. The main criteria, which are not necessarily weighted equally, are (a) excellence in scientific research; (b) impact and influence in the field; (c) excellence in teaching and training of students; (d) outstanding advancement and other support of the field through administration, public service or engineering achievement.
You can find more information on the Brouwer Award, the selection process, and a list of previous award winners at: http://dda.harvard.edu/brouwer_award/. Recent recipients include Victor Brumberg, Simon White, Jacques Laskar, and James Williams. Please send nominations, with a brief explanation of the candidate's achievements, to the Brouwer Award Selection Committee Chair, Stephen Unwin.
To be eligible to serve on the DDA Committee, one must be a full (not Affiliate or Student) member of the DDA and AAS. An Affiliate member could qualify to run for office by upgrading to full membership.
This year, we need to elect a Vice-Chair, who will then nominally become Chair the next year and stay on the Committee as Past-Chair the year after that, for a total of 3 yearsŐ service; a Treasurer, which is a 3-year term; and three members of the Committee, who serve 2-years terms. Terms of office are now tied to the calendar, not to the meeting date, and run from July 1 to June 30.
An important goal in choosing officers is to provide broad diversity in professional specialty, institutional affiliation, gender, age, and geographic location. We are doing well in terms of gender and age among the continuing members of the Committee, but there is possibly some imbalance in the other aspects (the western-most member is in Arizona and there are no foreign members). Here I list the continuing members of the Committee, their institutions, professional specialty, and the offices they will hold in the year coming up for which we are electing new members:
If you or someone you know would add breadth to this group, I particularly want to hear from you. On the other hand, diversity isnŐt everything, so I really want to hear from anyone who is willing to serve or has a suggestion of someone who would be good and might be willing. Please send suggestions to me or any of the other members of the Nominating Committee:
Alan W. Harris, Chair
Glen Stewart
William I. Newman
We actually collected a lot of stuff during those first couple of years. We received a description of the founding of the DDA from Ray Duncombe, which is available on the DDA web site (http://dda.harvard.edu/aboutdda/ddahist.html).
We even received a picture from the first meeting. With the help of some of the older members we were able to identify most of the participants. But there are still some that are unknown. If you can identify one of them please let me know. The picture itself is embedded in Ray's history.
However, I don't actually keep the archives. Instead, my main job was to collect the the initial papers from members, do an initial sort, and find an archives with professional archivists willing to do the real work. The archives themselves, and probably a much better list of the materials in it than mine reside at the Center for History of Physics at the AIP, One Physics Ellipse, College Park, MD 20740, (301) 209-3165, http://www.aip.org/history/.
The contact there is Joe Anderson. Fortunately, Joe will happily accept all of the files, preferably with an initial listing, and will take it from there. In fact, he would much rather accept duplicates and take care of them himself than have us do an initial sort and accidentally throw out something unique.
Nowadays, the work of the archives consists of
bullying the secretary (along with anybody taking pictures) into
either sending me his/her files or getting him/her to drop them off
at the AIP his/herself.
James Hilton
(__) Accept
(__) Reject
the proposed revisions to the DDA By-Laws, as indicated in the "2009 Revision" posted on the division website, http://dda.harvard.edu
Please return your ballot within four weeks of the date of distribution of this newsletter. Per the By-laws, "The adoption of an amendment shall require the affirmative vote of not fewer than two thirds of the members voting."
Last updated 2009-08-04 by Alice Monet, DDA Secretary and Doug Mink, DDA Webmaster