Association of Korean Physicists in America

Dear Esteemed Members of AKPA,

It has been an honor and privilege to serve as the 29th President of AKPA for the last two years. Please join me in congratulating Prof. Jae Yu on the inauguration of the 30th administration, which starts on May 1, 2013. The AKPA annual meeting for transition to the 30th administration was held on March 19, 2013 during the American Physical Society (APS) March meeting in Baltimore MD.

During the Forum of International Physics (FIP) Reception I had an opportunity to introduce AKPA to the FIP community, and to present 2013 Outstanding Young Researcher Awards (OYRA) to Drs. Sukbum Chung, University of California, Los Angeles, and Gyu-Boong Jo, University of California, Berkeley. Both awardees and the AKPA officers were present at the ceremony. The FIP attendees included the APS President, Prof. Michael Turner; the Chair of FIP, Prof. Sergio Ulloa; APS Executive Officer, Dr. Kate Kirby; and APS Director of International Affairs, Dr. Amy Flatten. The Korean Physical Society (KPS) sponsored one of the two OYRA winners for three years in a row.

The Korean Physicist Symposium organized by AKPA President Elect, Prof. Seunghun Lee was a great success. It was held on Wednesday March 20, 2013 as a satellite meeting of the APS March Meeting, and it was chaired by Prof. Kim, Philip, Columbia University. Distinguished speakers included Prof. Sang-Wook Cheong, Rutgers University, Prof. Yoon Hee Jeong, POSTECH, Dr. Matthew Stone, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and Dr. Sukbum Chung, one of the two 2013 OYRA recipients. The symposium was followed by the Traditional Wednesday Dinner, which was organized by Prof. Yung Kee Yeo of the Air Force Institute of Technology, Dr. Dong Ho Wu of Naval Research Lab, Dr. Hoydoo You of Argonne National Lab, and Prof. Kee-Joo Chang of KAIST. About 90 people attended the symposium and/or banquet according to the sign-in sheet.

The National High School Physics Contest was successfully held on Saturday, April 13, 2013, during the National Mathematics and Science Competition (NMSC 2013). Building on the successful pilot program launched in two locations last year, we have expanded this program to thirteen locations this year. In addition to local winners, three national champions were selected. I have attended the award ceremony, which was held at the Korean-American Scientists and Engineers Association (KSEA) Headquarters on Sunday April 21, 2013.

During my term, we launched a new Joomla based web http://akpa.org/ to document all of our activities and to communicate effectively with the community. We also had a beautiful make-over of the Newsletter: kudos to the Publicity and Editorial Committee. We organized numerous meetings to promote collaborations and networking. In addition to a series of Korean Physicist Symposia at APS meetings, including the March meeting, April meeting, and Annual meeting of the Division of Plasma Physics, we organized multiple physics sessions with record-setting attendance at the US-Korea Conference on Science, Technology and Entrepreneurship (UKC 2012). We also organized a US-Korea Workshop as part of the Korean Physical Society (KPS) 60th anniversary celebration. We received a travel grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF), which made it possible for many U.S. participants to attend the meeting in Korea. AKPA helped facilitate the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed in 2012 between the KPS and the APS to strengthen the collaborations and communications.

None of these activities would have been possible without close collaborations with APS, KPS, KSEA, and the Korea-US Science Cooperation Center (KUSCO). I hope the next administration led by Prof. Yu will continue a strong relationship with these organizations, in order to develop productive programs that benefit the broader community.

I would like to thank the officers and committee members, who shared our vision to carry out our activities with passion, and made all of our accomplishments possible for the last two years. We were fortunate to have Prof. Jae Yu as the Vice President, Prof. Yoonseok Lee as the General Secretary, Dr. Youngsoo Yoon as the Publication Secritary, Drs. Zaeill Kim and Taeksu Shin as the Treasury Secretaries, Drs. Chulhoon Chang and Myong-Hwan Kim as the Web Management Secretaries, Dr. Jeonghee Rho as the E-Link Secretary, and Dr. Jongkyu Park as the Membership Secretary. I would like to thank the Award Committee chaired by Prof. Kyungseon Joo, the Publicity and Editorial Committee chaired by Prof. Sung-Won Lee, and the E-Link Committee chaired by Prof. Jongsoo Yoon. My special thanks to the Task Force for International Cooperation and the Task Force for National Competition.

While my term as President is coming to a close, my dedication to our community will continue. Let me close my statement by inviting you to the upcoming UKC 2013 to be held in East Rutherford, New Jersey from August 7 to 11, 2013. There will be eight or more physics sessions. Submit your abstracts on the conference web site: http://ukc.ksea.org/UKC2013/. I hope to see many of you there.

Best Regards,

Eun-Suk Seo
29th President of AKPA