From the President

Linnea Wahl (lewahl@lbl.gov)

In my first message as Accelerator Section President, I’d like to start by welcoming the new officers of the section, elected last spring and inducted into office at the 54^th Annual Meeting of the Health Physics Society (HPS) in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The new president-elect is Mike Grissom, recently retired from SLAC National Accelerator Lab and a long-time member of the section. The new newsletter editor is Keith Heinzelman; Keith is new to the section and to Lawrence Livermore National Lab after many years at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. Three new directors include Elsa Nimmo (University of California, Berkeley), Reg Ronningen (Michigan State University), and Jack Topper (Lawrence Livermore National Lab). Welcome all.

Of course, when new folks join, other officers complete their tours. Many thanks to the previous past president, Kamran Vaziri (Fermilab), and to the past directors Erik Abkemeier (Naval Sea Systems Command), Rich Brey (Idaho State University), and Don Gregory (Oak Ridge National Lab). Their dedication and hard work on behalf of the Accelerator Section contributed mightily to our status as one of the most active sections in the society.

Thanks go, too, to Nolan Hertel of Georgia Institute of Technology who for three years has served as the section’s liaison to the Health Physics Society’s board of directors. Nolan completed his service to the society’s board this year. Our new liaison to the society is Patricia Lee (Savannah River National Laboratory), who is very familiar with the Accelerator Section through her role on the HPS Program Committee for the 2008 midyear meeting on radiation-generating devices.

While I’m giving thanks, I should also give out congratulations—to the two winners of the 2009 H. Wade Patterson Award. Eric Burgett (Georgia Institute of Technology) received a check for $250 and a plaque for his presentation titled “A Low-Cost High-Energy Neutron Spectrometer Extension to a Bonner Sphere Spectrometer.” Neba Robinson Neba (Idaho State University) received honorable mention, along with a check for $50, for his presentation titled “Limitations of Bremsstrahlung Radiation for Microbeam Radiation Therapy.” The judges were impressed by both students’ papers, and the section hopes that Eric and Neba will be encouraged by the H. Wade Patterson Award to continue their work in accelerator radiation protection.

Next year, the H. Wade Patterson Award will be joined by a new award in memory of Lutz Moritz, a founding member and past president of the Accelerator Section who passed away in October 2008. The members of the section voted at the 2009 section business meeting to establish this award to honor Lutz and his contributions to accelerator health physics. Like the H. Wade Patterson Award, the Lutz Moritz Award (a cash prize and plaque) will be presented to a promising health physics student who has submitted an outstanding talk or poster on accelerator radiation protection. See details of both awards on the Accelerator Section website (http://hpschapters.org/sections/accelerator/awards.php3).

Finally, let me close by reminding all members of the Health Physics Society that the annual election for new officers is just around the corner. When you get the e-mail from the Secretariat, please respond right away by casting your vote. The HPS survives and thrives by the continued involvement of all of us.