AKPA News in April 1999 (Association of Korean Physicists in America)

************************************************************************

(1). The AKPA 1999 Annual Meeting

(2). AKPA Presidential and Auditor Election Results

(3). Traditional APS March Wednesday Dinner Meeting

(4). Prof. Song's Nomination for APS Councilor

(5). Invited Talkers in APS Meeting

(6). AKPA Homepage and Directory Updating

(7). Final Treasury Report (unaudited)

(8). Farewell Greetings from the 20th President

************************************************************************

Dear AKPA members, we hope this e-mail finds every member of our AKPA family healthy, happy, and prosperous!

(1). The AKPA 1999 Annual Meeting

AKPA held the Annual Meeting on Sunday, March 21, 1999 in Atlanta, Georgia during the APS Meeting at 6:30 pm in Seong Do Ban Jeom. After the dinner and informal introduction, the Business Meeting Session of the Annual Meeting started at 8:30pm. A brief greetings from the President was followed by Dr. Jin-Joo Song's report on the 22nd President and 11th Auditor election result on behalf of the Election Committee, Treasurer's brief report on the financial state of the AKPA by Dr. Young Hoon Kim, AKPA's web site status report by Dr. Hoy Doo You, e-mail list update report by Dr. Jeong Sun Moon, AKPA's effort report on the contact to the Korean Physical Society by Dr. Yeo for Dr. Lyo, and greetings from incoming 21st President, Dr. Jin Joo Song. The final item of the business session was the report from the President which included: (1) the effective method of updating AKPA's membership directory, (2) submission of articles to the AKPA by the 1999 OYRA winner and honorable mention awardees, and (3) more participation on AKPA membership dues and contributions.

The 1999 Outstanding Young Researcher's Award (OYRA) ceremony was also held at the AKPA Annual Meeting. The award was presented by Profs. Kiuck Lee (Marquette Univ, Committee Chairman) and B.Y. Oh (Penn State Univ). The winner was Prof. Yong Baek Kim (Penn State University), and Honorable Mention awardees were Dr. Changyoung Kim (Stanford University), Dr. Sihong Kim (University of California at San Diego), Dr. Jae Tae Seo (Hampton University), and Dr. Sangsig Kim (absentee, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign). The award in the amount of $1,000 was presented to the winner along with a plaque, and a cash award of $100 each was also presented to four outstanding young physicists along with the Honorable Mention plaques at the AKPA annual meeting.

(2). AKPA Presidential and Auditor Election Results

The AKPA is pleased to announce that Dr. ZANG-HEE CHO, Professor of Radiological Sciences and Director of NMR Imaging Research, University of California at Irvine, California has been elected as the 22nd President of the AKPA and Dr. YOUNG HOON KIM, Professor of Physics, University of Cincinnati, Ohio as the 11th auditor by the Association of Korean Physicists in America. On behalf of the AKPA, we would like to extend our warm congratulations and best wishes to them. We look forward to Dr. Cho's great contributions for better Association. Dr. Cho will serve as the Vice President from 5/1/99 to 4/30/00 for the 21st AKPA President, Professor Jin-Joo Song of the Oklahoma State University, and then he will serve as the AKPA's 22nd President from 5/1/00 to 4/30/01. Dr. Kim will serve as the 11th auditor from 5/1/99 to 4/30/00. The ballots were opened and tabulated on March 21, 1999, on time for the AKPA Annual Meeting in Atlanta, Georgia by Profs. Jin-Joo Song and Young Soo Oh in the presence of the AKPA's president Yung Kee Yeo.

(3). Traditional APS March Wednesday Dinner Meeting

AKPA was told that the traditional APS March dinner meeting was held at the "Great Wall" Chinese restaurant at 6:30 pm on Wednesday, March 24, 1999. The meeting place has been arranged by six Korean students at the Univ. of Georgia and Prof. Y.S. Kim of Univ. of Maryland. Senior members of the Condensed Matter Physics Group extend their gratitude to these people for their efforts. Many physicists from Korea attended this dinner meeting, although the total number of participants were noticeably small in this year. In particular, it was an honor to have ex-Secretary of Science and Technology, Prof. Sook-Il Kwon of Seoul National University, Prof. Tong Soo Park of Kyungpook National University, Prof. Sung-Ho Cho of Korea University, Prof. Sung-Ho Saik of Pohang University of Science and Technology, Prof. Young Woo Park of Seoul National University, and many other prominent physics professors from Korea at this dinner meeting.

This historical annual dinner meeting has been held for the past three decades and had been organized on site by volunteer senior members of the participants until a few years ago. In the last several years, however, the dinner meeting has been organized by Dr. Y. S. Kim of University of Maryland with the help of local physicists and announced through his e-mail network. Recently, however, many of the participants have felt strongly that it will be more convenient and logical to go back to the original tradition and to organize the dinner meeting by the conference participants themselves (mostly condensed matter physicists) who are more familiar with the conference activities rather than by a nonparticipant. Also, the dinner meeting format can be more freely adjusted to promote mutual fellowship and exchange of information. The following physicists have announced that the traditional APS March Wednesday Dinner Meeting for the year 2000 in Minneapolis will be organized independent of Dr. YS Kim's meeting. The organizers are Dr. Young Hwa Kim (Meeting chair, President, High Dimension Research Inc., St Paul, MN), Drs. Young-Hoon Kim (U. of Cincinnati), Sung-Kwun Lyo (Sandia National Labs.), Jin-Joo Song (Oklahoma St U), Hoy Doo You (Argonne National Lab.), and Yung Kee Yeo (Air Force Inst. of Tech). The name of place will be announced through the AKPA e-mail channel as soon as the place is determined. The meeting participants express their sincere thanks to Dr. Young-Hwa Kim for his kind help for their dinner meeting in spite of his very busy schedule.

(4). Prof. Song's Nomination for APS Councilor

AKPA proudly announce that Prof. Jin-Joo Song of Oklahoma State University has been nominated for the position of "APS Councilor for Members at Large." To the best of our knowledge, this is the first case of nomination for the American Physical Society Organizational position by Korean-American physicist. AKPA enthusiastically endorses and supports her nomination for the position.

Professor Song holds the positions of Regents Professor of Physics, Noble Chair Professor of Photonics, and the Director of the interdisciplinary Center for Laser and Photonics Research (CLPR) at Oklahoma State University. She is a fellow of the American Physical Society and a fellow of the Optical Society of America. She has served the APS in various capacities: Committee on the Status of Women in Physics (1989-1992); Committee on Minorities (1993-1995); Task Force for Growth (1994); Member (1994) and Chair (1995) of the Bouchette Award Committee; APS-CSWP site visit team member (1989, 1991, 1993, 1995); and Chair of the Division of Laser Science Travel Award Committee (1992). Additionally, she is the recipient of the Outstanding Asian Excellence Award of Oklahoma for 1996, as well as the 1997 OSU President's Service Award.

Prof. Song is currently the principal investigator of the newly established multi-million dollar NSF Integrated Education and Graduate Research Training program at OSU, which focuses on multidisciplinary Ph.D. training in Photonics. She is also the principal investigator of the OSU component of the NSF-EPSCoR Center for Photonic and Electronic Materials and Devices, a multi-university program. As a Director of the CLPR, she coordinates and directs interdisciplinary laser and photonics programs involving universities, industries, and government laboratories. Recent conference committees served on by Prof. Song include: Program Co-Chair of the 22nd International Compound Semiconductor Symposium (1996), Program Committee of the Conference on Quantum Electronics and Laser Science (1999), International Advisory Board of the 4th International Conference on Nitride Semiconductors (1999), and Co-Chair of SPIE Symposium on Ultrafast Phenomena in Semiconductors (1999-2000). Song's present research interests include nanotechnology and ultrafast phenomena, especially wide band gap semiconductor quantum structures, epitaxial growth, characterization, and device fabrication.

(5). Invited Talkers in APS Meeting

It is a pleasure to report that there were at least four Korean-American invited talkers at the APS meeting in Atlanta, Georgia. The presenter's names and titles are as follows:

1. Sang-Wook Cheong (Rutger's University), Percolative Phase Separation and CMR in Mixed-Valent Magnetites 2. Jonghwa Eom (James Frank Inst., U of Chicago), Phase Dependent Thermopower of Andreev Interferometers 3. John Kim (Univ. of California at Los Angeles), Impact of Computing on Turbulence Research 4. Euyheon Hwang (Univ. of Maryland), C-axis Plasmons in High Temperature Superconductors (6). AKPA Homepage and Directory Updating

The AKPA organization has its own homepage, and it can be visited by opening the web site <http://www.AKPA.org>. The AKPA web site is now located at the Korean-American Scientists and Engineers Association (KSEA) web site. The current AKPA homepage has been updated by Dr. You of Argonne National Lab. AKPA is constantly updating the membership directory as we receive, and will make it available through AKPA home page. Also, AKPA made it possible for our members to update themselves their addresses and other information directly from our web site at any time whenever the changes occur. This can be done by visiting <<http://www.AKPA.org>>, clicking on "2. AKPA Members," clicking on "4. Update Your Information," and just logging in and typing in new information on the web site.

(7). Final Treasury Report (unaudited)

AKPA has maintained its sound operation by the support of good standing members who pay yearly membership dues and generous contributions. AKPA expresses sincere thanks to our faithful AKPA members as shown below for their continuous generous support. In particular, the AKPA expresses sincere gratitude to the Korean-American Scientists and Engineers Association (KSEA) for their generous contribution of $500 to AKPA through Dr. Kidong Lee of KSEA President and kind help from Dr. Yoon Soo Park of Office of Naval Research.

A summary of the final unaudited treasury report prepared by Dr. Young Hoon Kim along with the list of due and donation paid members is shown below. Final audited Treasury Report will soon be posted in the AKPA homepage.

AKPA 98-99 FINANCIAL REPORT (As of April 20, 1999)

(8). Farewell Greetings from the 20th President

It has already been a year since I became the 20th AKPA president, and it is now the time to pass on the AKPA's administration to the next president. Initially, I did have plans to do many things and tried as much as I could, although not all of them have been accomplished. First and foremost important thing I had in my mind was how we could make the AKPA beneficial to each and every member of the AKPA. In spite of some unfulfilled tasks, it is my pleasure to report that the current state of AKPA is healthy and strong. We are very happy to see that we were able to hand over a healthy AKPA to the next team. As the time goes on to the coming years, I am sure that the AKPA will become getting stronger and stronger, and will become more beneficial to the members. We wish our best and good luck to the next AKPA administration team headed by Dr. Jin-Joo Song as of May 1, 1999.

On behalf of the AKPA, I would like to thank to all those senior colleagues and faithful members who gave us their strong support and cooperation during the year 1998-99 and in previous years. I would like to express my sincere gratitude to the staff officers who served the AKPA for the period of May 1, 1998-April 30, 1999. Without their dedicated efforts, I could not achieve anything for the AKPA. The dedicated people are: President-elect and vice president, Prof. Jin Joo Song of Oklahoma State University, Past President, Prof. Kyungsik Kang of Brown University, Secretary General, Prof. Sang-Wook Cheong of Rutgers University, Publicity and Editorial Secretary, Dr. Hoydoo You of Argonne National Laboratory, E-Link Secretary, Dr. Sungkwun Lyo of Sandia National Laboratories, Treasury Secretary, Prof. Young Hoon Kim of Univ. of Cincinnati, and Auditor, Dr. Seung-Chan Ahn of Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory.

In particular, I would like to extend my sincere thanks to Dr. Jeong-Sun Moon of Sandia National Laboratory. Although he was not an official staff of AKPA, he handled all the AKPA e-mails and regular mails without hesitation or excuse in spite of his busy research schedule. I felt so proud of his dedication as a young physicist. I hope we do have many young AKPA members just like him.

I would also like to thank to all of the Standing Committee Members for their wonderful contributions to AKPA, who served for the year 1998-1999. The Committee members are as follows: Election Committee members were Profs. Jin-Joo Song (Chairperson) of Oklahoma State University, Nowhan Kwak of Kansas State University, and Young Soo Oh of Penn State University; Award Committee members were Drs. William T. Chu and Benedict Y. Oh (class of '99), Drs. Kiuck Lee (Chairperson) and Chueng Ryong Ji (class of '00), and Drs. Sungkwun Lyo and Sang-Wook Cheong (class of '01); Editorial Committee members were Drs. Saeyoung Ahn and Soo-Ung Kim (class of '99), Drs. Ki-hyon Kim (Chairperson) and Quiesup Kim (class of '00), and Drs. Hoydoo You and M. Howard Lee (class of '01); and E-Link Committee members were Drs. Benedict Y. Oh and Weonjong Lee (class of '99), Drs. Saeyoung Ahn (Chairperson) and Yoon-Soo Park (class of '00), and Drs. Sungkwun Lyo and Jeong-Sun Moon (class of '01).

May God Bless AKPA, all AKPA members, and their families!

Yung Kee Yeo 20th AKPA President Air Force Institute of Technology