HEAD Meetings
The Minutes of the Executive Committee meeting of the High Energy
Astrophysics Division of the American Astronomical Society.
January 8th, 2007 -- Seattle, WA
The Executive Committee meeting of the High Energy Astrophysics
Division was held on January 8th, 2007 at the Seattle AAS
meeting, convening at 7.00pm. Present were Steve Murray (chair),
Roger Blandford (past-chair),
Christine Jones(secretary-treasurer), Committee members
Julie McEnery, Chris Reynolds, Bryan Gaensler, Vicky Kalogera and
Ron Remillard. Steve Murray called the meeting to order.
The following issues were discussed --
The location and time for the next HEAD meeting. It was agreed it should
be held in Spring 2008 with dates that do not conflict with religious
holidays. (Note from Editor - The Tenth HEAD is now scheduled for
March 31-April 3 in LA at the Onmi Hotel).
Also with regard to the HEAD meeting and abstract submission and sorting,
Steve Murray reported that he is working with Judy Johnson at the AAS
office to incorporate more functionality into the sorting process to
make the AAS abstract tool better suited for use in planning HEAD meetings.
There was also discussion of press coverage from the HEAD 2006 meeting in
San Fransisco. Although the HEAD Press Officer was not in attendance at
the AAS meeting, the Executive Committee felt that the mode of distributing
information to the press has changed in recent years and that it is not
cost effective to set up a press office on site at the HEAD meeting.
The amount of press coverage of science results presented at the meeting
was also limited.
Thus in the future, it is likely that any press releases associated with
results presented at the HEAD meetings will be made through the NASA missions,
through the presenter's host institution, or through local contacts with
the local organizing committee instutition.
The HEAD account and budget was also discussed and it was agreed that the current balance
was probably sufficient
(particularly if costs now related to HEAD meeting press
expenses are included) to consider a new HEAD prize for the
outstanding PhD thesis. One possibility is that this prize, with an
associated talk, would be presented at the HEAD meeting.
The Committee discussed the nominations for the HEAD Rossi prize
and selected Neil Gehrels and the Swift Team for the 2007 award.
The outgoing ExCom member Bryan Gaensler was
was thanked by Steve and the executive committee for his service
on the Committee.
As there were no further items, the meeting was adjoined.
These minutes were prepared by Christine Jones,
Secretary-Treasurer, High Energy Astrophysics Division,
American Astronomical Society.
