University of Illinois Associate Professor of Physics Nadya Mason has been elected general councilor of the American Physical Society (APS) by a vote of its membership. The APS Council, which meets twice a year, is the main governing body of the society, responsible for both policy and actions of the Society. Mason will begin a four-year term on January 1, 2014.
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University of Illinois Associate Professor of Physics Nadya Mason has been elected general councilor of the American Physical Society (APS) by a vote of its membership. The APS Council, which meets twice a year, is the main governing body of the society, responsible for both policy and actions of the Society. Mason will begin a four-year term on January 1, 2014.
Nadya Mason
Mason said it will be a privilege to serve the APS in this advisory role.
“I’m delighted to have been elected as a councilor and look forward to working to increase the breadth and impact of physics. Working in physics has been a joy for me, and this is a great opportunity to give back to the community.”
During her term, Mason plans to focus on several specific calls to action. Among these, she said making sure physics funding is prioritized at the national level is essential to the nation’s long-term social and intellectual prosperity.
“It will be important to find new ways to help the public and policy-makers recognize the crucial role that physics has played and will continue to play in the development of our society,” Mason commented.
Mason will advocate for fundamental scientific research, in addition to application-related work. And she will work through the APS Council to broadly communicate the significant results and impact of physics research, particularly taking advantage of new media.
Mason said she would also like to look at how the APS can further support increased diversity within the field of physics. A longtime advocate for women and underrepresented minorities in the field, Mason said the APS must help to ensure that all students are given the opportunity to engage with physics.
“In my experience, increased diversity and a welcoming climate enrich the field for everyone,” said Mason.
Mason is a researcher at the Frederick Seitz Materials Research Laboratory at Illinois. Mason’s voluminous list of publications in peer-reviewed journals attests to her seminal research contributions to experimental condensed matter physics and has established her as an international leader in the physics and electronic properties of carbon nanotubes, graphene, and topological insulators. Because of the low dimensionality of these systems, they often display novel electronic properties and hold promise for applications in superconductivity and quantum computing. Mason’s work has direct bearing on our understanding of electronic transport in these materials which is essential for the design of nanoscale circuit elements, an emerging area of study.
Mason has received numerous awards for her work, including the U. of I. College of Engineering Dean's Award for Excellence in Research, the Maria Goeppert Mayer Award of the American Physical Society (2012), the Denice Denton Emerging Leader Award of the Anita Borg Institute (2009), a Woodrow Wilson Career Enhancement Fellowship (2008/09), a National Science Foundation CAREER Award (2007), and her appointment as a Center for Advanced Study Fellow (2011/12) at the University of Illinois. She was one of 122 young scientists to take part in the National Academy of Sciences' U.S. and Chinese-American Kavli Frontiers of Science symposia (2011).
Mason received her bachelor’s degree in physics from Harvard University in 1995 and her Ph.D. in physics from Stanford University in 2001. She then returned to Harvard for a postdoctoral fellowship and was in short order elected to the Harvard Society of Fellows. She joined the Physics Illinois faculty in 2005. She is currently serving as the Chair of the Facilities Committee for MRL and as as one of the theme leaders for the DOE Basic Energy Sciences cluster on quantum materials and nanoarchitectures.
This year’s APS Council meetings are scheduled for Friday, April 4, in Savannah, Georgia, and Saturday, November 24, in San Francisco, California. In addition to serving on the Council and participating in its meetings, councilors are usually asked to serve on one or more of its standing committees or task forces, in some cases by election. _______________________
Contact:Nadya Mason, Department of Physics, 217/244-9114.
Writer:Siv Schwink, Department of Physics, 217/552-5671.
If you have any questions about the College of Engineering, or other story ideas, contact Rick Kubetz, editor, Engineering Communications Office, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 217/244-7716.