BISO News, Spring 2008
May 30, 2008
Welcome (Back) to BISO NEWS!
After a long
hiatus, we are pleased to relaunch BISO News, the quarterly newsletter
of the Board on International Scientific Organizations (BISO). We are continuing
to explore new technologies, so you will continue to notice changes in the
format of our newsletter and websites over the next year. We hope
you'll appreciate these changes as you learn more about BISO and the
activities of the U.S. National Committees.
IN THIS ISSUE...
* BISO
Activities
* USNCs in the News
* Travel Grants and
Fellowships
* BISO Staff News
* General Assembly
& Congress Calendar
BISO ACTIVITIES
READY, SET, SCIENCE! BRING A CHILD TO WORK DAY 2008
 The National Academies’ annual
Bring a Child to Work Day, held April 24, 2008, featured a vast array of
interactive science activities that were meant to introduce children to the
work of the National Academies and inspire them to explore careers in the fields of science,
engineering and medicine. Approximately 85 students, ages 8-12, took
part in the day’s events, which included a series of five science workshops.
BISO was especially active in this year’s program by leading and assisting
two of the five workshops. This year’s theme was “Ready, Set, Science!” Read more and see photos from the event (87.6KB PDF) or check out our "Ready, Set, Science!" comic (9.25MB PDF).
USNC CHAIRS HOLD JOINT MEETING
Every 18-24 months,
BISO convenes a meeting of the chairs of the U.S. National Committees (USNCs)
to foster interaction and increase communication among the
committees across disciplinary boundaries. These meetings also
provide a venue to introduce the chairs to several key issues in
international science that might be of interest to their committees, discuss
the relevance of these issues to their committees, and encourage chairs to
bring ideas and issues of concern to the attention of other chairs and to
BISO.
The most recent meeting, held April 16, 2008, in Washington,
DC, focused on the national committees’
relationships with the International Council for Science (ICSU), the unions,
and the U.S.
professional societies. Carthage Smith, Deputy Executive
Director of ICSU, Sospeter Muhongo, Director of ICSU’s Regional Office
for Africa, and Alice Abreu, Director of ICSU’s Regional Office for
Latin America and the Caribbean, spoke about ICSU’s goals and activities in
the central and regional offices. Chairs then had an opportunity to
discuss how the activities of their individual committees might overlap with
and contribute to those of ICSU, the regional offices, the unions, and other
USNCs. In addition, there was a session on how the national committees
relate to their relevant professional societies. A joint dinner session
with the BISO Board that evening focused on the role of the National Academy
of Sciences (NAS) in international activities, with NAS Foreign Secretary Michael
Clegg as the keynote speaker.
BISO PLANS SEPTEMBER 25TH SYMPOSIUM
BISO is planning
a public symposium for September 25, 2008, focusing on the relationship
between geosciences and public health. This symposium will be part of
BISO's celebration of the International Year of Planet Earth and will focus
on the flow of toxins and microbes in the environment and their impact on
human health. More information will be available later this summer on
the BISO homepage.
USNCs IN THE NEWS
PACIFIC SCIENCE SYMPOSIUM SET FOR JUNE 2008
U.S. scientists involved
with the Pacific Science Association have organized a symposium for the AAAS-Pacific Division meeting in
Waimea, Hawaii on June 18, 2008, entitled "Pacific Science:
U.S.-Asia/Pacific Collaboration in Advancing Science in the 21st
Century." Scientists with experience in collaborative international
research in Asia and the Pacific will
discuss the opportunities and challenges for enhanced collaboration between
American scientists and their counterparts in the Asia-Pacific region.
Successful efforts to design and conduct research to advance goals
that are important to less-developed nation-states, such as capacity-building
and information repatriation, will also be examined.
JULY SYMPOSIUM EXPLORES SOIL SCIENCE
The
national committee for Soil Science (USNC/SS) and the Soil Science Society of
America are co-sponsoring a symposium at The National
Academies' Building on July 18, 2008, in celebration of the opening of
the Smithsonian Institution's "Dig It! The Secrets of Soil" exhibit
the following day. Speakers confirmed for this symposium are David
Montgomery, Rattan Lal, Diana Wall, and Daniel Richter.
For more
information, please visit the USNC/SS website.
PSYCHOLOGY TRAINING SEMINAR IN BERLIN
THIS SUMMER
The USNC/IUPsyS and the American Psychological
Association are co-sponsoring an Advanced Research and Training Seminar (ARTS) entitled “Large Scale
International Data Sets Relevant for Research in Educational and
Developmental Psychology,” which will be held on July 18-20, 2008, at Humboldt University in Berlin, Germany,
just prior to the XXIX International Congress of Psychology. Judith
Torney-Purta, a member of the USNC/IUPsyS, is one of the leaders of this
seminar. For more information, please visit http://www.am.org/iupsys/arts/artsann.html.
USNC/DIVERSITAS SYMPOSIUM PLANNED FOR 2009
The USNC for DIVERSITAS is
planning a symposium on biodiversity science and policy, to be held in
February 2009 in Washington,
DC.
The meeting will focus on how biodiversity and ecosystem services intersect
with three key policy issues critical to human well being in the future:
climate change and energy, trade and invasive species, and food
security. The symposium will also celebrate the bicentenary of the
birth of Charles Darwin and the 150th anniversary of the publication of The
Origin of the Species.
EARTH SCIENCES USNCs SPONSOR FEBRUARY SYMPOSIUM
The four Earth
sciences national committees jointly organized a symposium entitled “Planet
Earth: Lessons Ignored, Lessons Learned” held on February 15, 2008, at the AAAS
meeting in Boston, MA. Presenters included Farouk
El-Baz (Chair, USNC/GS, Boston University), Charles Rice (Member,
USNC/Soils, Kansas State University),
Ian Pepper (University of Arizona), and Rosemary Knight (Stanford University). The symposium was
well attended and generated considerable media attention.
OPTICS IN ACTION
The national committee for optics (USNC/ICO) has joined
UNESCO, ICTP, and the major U.S.
optical societies in sponsoring Active Learning in Optics and Photonics
(ALOP) workshops. These week-long teacher training events for physics
teachers from universities and senior high schools are typically held in
developing countries. Approximately 30-40 participants attend each
workshop, drawn not only from the host country but from other nearby
countries as well. Three workshops were held in 2007 in Tanzania, Brazil, Mexico, and two workshops
are planned in Zambia
and Cameroon
in 2008. A significant outcome of the Brazil and Mexico
workshops is that participants are taking the teacher’s manual, which up
until now has been available only in English and French, and translating it
into Spanish.
USNC/IUPsyS RELEASES COLLABORATIONS REPORT
 Based on the outcomes of a
workshop convened by the U.S. National Committee for Psychological Science
(USNC/IUPsyS) and informed by a survey of social scientists who have led
cross-national projects, a new BISO report, International Collaborations
in Behavioral and Social Science, was released earlier this year.
This report addresses the multiple benefits of research extending
across national boundaries and describes factors common among successful
collaborations. Several dimensions of collaborative processes, such as
research planning, methodological issues, organizational concerns, varied
training approaches, and funding needs receive critical attention in this
report. Read
the Report In Brief or download the whole report
from the National Academies Press.
TRAVEL GRANTS AND
FELLOWSHIPS
USNC/IIASA: YSSP RECIPIENTS TRAVEL TO AUSTRIA
Nine graduate students from U.S.universities
will spend the summer doing research at the International Institute for
Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) in Austria
in the Young Scientists Summer Program (YSSP), thanks to fellowships awarded
by the National Academy from a grant from the
National Science Foundation. Participating students hail from
around the world. View the participants list as well as the
calendar of activities they will pursue at http://www.iiasa.ac.at/yssp/.
USNC/URSI: TRAVEL SUPPORT AVAILABLE
FOR NEXT GENERAL ASSEMBLY
The USNC/URSI
will be providing financial support to every U.S.
graduate student who is the presenting author on a paper or a poster that
will be delivered at the General Assembly in Chicago, IL,
from August 7-16, 2008. Each student award recipient will receive
lodging for the 10-day duration of the meeting in the conference hotel.
The meeting will provide an opportunity for these U.S.
students to interact with international peers and more senior U.S. and
international scientists. The USNC/URSI is also contributing
$10,000 from private funds toward travel support for international students
to attend the 2008 General Assembly. Visit
the URSI web page for information about the General Assembly.
USNC/IUTAM: FELLOWSHIPS FOR AUGUST
INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS
In August 2008,
the national committee for mechanics (USNC/IUTAM) will be providing 35
fellowships to U.S.
scientists and researchers presenting papers at the International Congress of
Theoretical and Applied Mechanics in Adelaide,
Australia.
Past recipients include graduate students, early career faculty, and select
senior faculty. For additional details, visit the USNC/IUTAM website at www.nationalacademies.org/usnctam.
USNC/IUPAC: CALL FOR 2009 YOUNG
OBSERVERS
The 2009 Young Observer
Program will be underway this summer. The program introduces the work
of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) to a
new generation of researchers in addressing international scientific policy
issues. The USNC/IUPAC will send selected candidates to the 2009 IUPAC
Congress & General Assembly in Glasgow,
Scotland. Check the USNC/IUPAC website in early August for
competition details.
USNC/Cr: 2008 FELLOWSHIP RECIPIENTS ANNOUNCED
The national
committee for crystallography (USNC/Cr), in cooperation with the American
Crystallographic Association, congratulates the 2008 Fellowship
Recipients. View a list of this year's winners.
BISO
STAFF NEWS
BISO staff
member Maggie Goud Collins is collaborating with the Policy and Global
Affairs Division in expanding the successful Distinctive Voices@The Beckman Center speakers series at the
National Academies' Beckman
Center
in Irvine. The
inaugural season of the Distinctive Voices@The Jonsson Center, in
Woods Hole, MA, will begin on June 26, with a presentation by Mark Davis
on Nanomedicine Fighting Cancer. View
details about about the Distinctive Voices Program.
We are pleased to welcome Ana M. Ferreras as a
Program Officer supporting the USNCs for the math, math instruction,
crystallography, theoretical and applied mechanics, and physics committees.
Ana completed her Ph.D. in Industrial
Engineering (IE) at the University of Central Florida (UCF) and also holds an
M.S. in Engineering Management from the Florida Institute of Technology and a
B.S. in Electrical Engineering from UCF. Her doctoral research focused
on developing a company success index model to assess and predict
organizational performance based on critical success factors such as profit,
productivity, efficiency, quality, employee morale, safety and ergonomics.
Prior to joining BISO's staff this month, Ana was a winter
2008 Christine Mirzayan Policy Graduate Fellow with the Center for
Advancement of Scholarship on Engineering Education (CASEE) at the National
Academy of Engineering (NAE). In her free time, she enjoys watching
plays, opera, traveling and snorkeling.
GENERAL ASSEMBLY AND
CONGRESS CALENDAR
The next few months will be busy ones as U.S.
delegates attend a number of international scientific Congresses:
- June 29-July 4, 2008
International Union of Soil Sciences,
2008 InterCongress and Council Meeting
Brisbane, Australia
- July 6-13,
2008
International Congress on Mathematical
Education. ICME-11
Monterrey, Mexico
- July 7-10, 2008
International Commission for Optics, ICO-21 Congress
Sydney, Australia
- July 20-25, 2008
International Union
of Psychological Sciences, XXIX Congress
Berlin,
Germany
- August
5-15, 2008
International Union of Microbiological
Societies, General Assembly & Congress
Istanbul, Turkey
- August 6-14, 2008
International Union of Geological
Sciences, 33rd Congress
Oslo, Norway
- August 7-16, 2008
Union Radio Scientifique International, 29th General Assembly
Chicago, IL
- August 23-31, 2008
International Union of Crystallography,
21st Congress & General Assembly
Osaka, Japan
- August 24-30, 2008
International Union of Theoretical and
Applied Mechanics, 22nd Congress
Adelaide, Australia
- October 5-8, 2008
Committee on Data for Science and Technology (CODATA)
21st International Conference, Kyiv,
Ukraine
- October 14-18, 2008
International Union of Pure and Applied
Physics, 26th General Assembly
Tsukuba, Japan
- October 21-24, 2008
International Council for Science, 29th General Assembly
Maputo, Mozambique
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