HEAD Meetings
Minutes of the business meeting of the High Energy Astrophysics Division of the American Astronomical Society.
January 11th, 2006 -- Washington DC
Roger Blandford, the HEAD Chair, opened the meeting by welcoming the
HEAD membership.
Christine Jones as secretary-treasurer gave a brief report on the
status of the twice yearly HEAD newsletters and the status of the
HEAD accounts.
Ilana Harrus summarized the successful efforts of the HEAD press
office in bringing new results to the public and cited several
examples of the great interest in gamma-ray bursts from Swift as well
an press coverage of Suzaku. Detailed information on press coverage is
available in the May and November HEAD newsletters.
Roger brought the April APS meeting in Dallas to the attention of HEAD
members and encouraged them to attend. Information about the APS
meeting will be added to the HEAD web pages. We will also invite
participation by members of the APS in the HEAD2006 meeting in San
Fransisco. Steve Murray will lead the organizing committee for
HEAD2006.
Roger announced that the Rossi prize will be awarded to Tod
Strohmayer, Deepto Chakrabarty, and Rudy Wijnands for their pioneering
work in revealing the millisecond spin periods and in establishing
kilohertz intensity oscillations in X-ray sources as a powerful
diagnostic tool of accreting neutron star binary systems. Deepto and
Tod were in attendence and were congratulated.
Roger also mentioned the status of the HEAD elections. The nominating
committee (Greg Madejski, Matthew Baring and Chryssa Kouveliotou) has
generated a slate of candidates and is in the final stage of obtaining
agreement from each candidate to stand for office. Ballots will be
sent by email as soon as the slate is finalized.
Finally Roger noted that now was a great time in high energy
astrophysics, but that it was also a challenging time and that he was
a bit apprehensive about the future. As outgoing chair Roger offered
his thanks to members of the executive committee and turned over the
"mantle" to Steve Murray. Steve then thanked Roger, noting that it
would be a formidable task to fill the shoes of a giant, but that he
was looking forward to future challenges and advances.
There was no new business
Chair Steve Murray then adjourned the Business Meeting.
These minutes were prepared by Christine Jones,
Secretary-Treasurer, High Energy Astrophysics Division,
American Astronomical Society.
