BISO News Sept 2001, Issue #1

Director's Message –

Dear Friends –

We were about to publish this first issue of BISO News just as the tragic events of last week unfolded. We are well aware that this was an attack not on the United States alone -- but on the world. Citizens from perhaps as many as 80 countries lost their lives on 11 September 2001. Our sympathies go to the friends, families, and colleagues of all those who have been affected by this horror. We have received numerous messages of condolence and shared grief from our colleagues around the world. We want to thank them for demonstrating the universality and tolerance of science, for reminding us that we know people of good will and with generous hearts all over the world. Science is dedicated to the quest for truth and the advancement of knowledge. In response to the attacks, David Baltimore said to his colleagues, "Each person in the Caltech community should remember that we work for a greater good that terrorism cannot touch, the enlightenment produced by discovery and learning." We have work to do.

Wendy D. White
Director, BISO

To read excerpts from the messages of condolence, please click here.

USNC Highlights

Geological Science Highlights

USNC/IUGS to Hold National Strategy Workshop

The U.S. National Committee for the Geological Sciences is organizing a workshop to be held prior to the Geological Society of America meeting this November in Boston. The workshop will bring together leading scientific associations in the geosciences, representatives from government agencies involved in funding international geosciences, and members of the international unions and USNCs (IUGG, IUGS, INQUA and Soil Science) in the geosciences. The workshop will examine the different roles of the represented sectors and seek to list common goals and integrate national strategy. A report on the workshop will be available on the USNC/IUGS website later this winter.

Preparations continue for the 2006 World Congress of Soil Science
The Executive Committee for the 18th World Congress of Soil Science, to be held in Philadelphia, PA, in July 2006, has recently appointed more members to its Organizing Committee. Vice Chairs and Secretaries for each of the four IUSS Divisions, along with Associates for each position, have been appointed. For more details, see the USNC/SS website.

Physical and Engineering Science Highlights

Norman Neureiter, Department of State, invited by Physicists to Discuss International Scientific Collaborations
Norman Neureiter, the Science and Technology Advisor to the Secretary of State, was invited to speak at the annual meeting of the U.S. Liaison Committee for the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics held June, 2001. The U.S. scientific community has recently been concerned with the difficulties that foreign scientists are facing when applying for visas to attend international meetings or participate in international collaborations in the United States. Neureiter discussed how the State Department is working to identify a solution that will reduce barriers to international scientific exchanges and collaboration. Neureiter also spoke about the State Department's capabilities in science, the focus of the NRC report The Pervasive Role of Science, Technology and Health in Foreign Policy, which recommended the appointment of an S&T Advisor.

12 U.S. Chemists Participate in 2001 Young Observer Program
The U.S. National Committee for the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) selected 12 outstanding young researchers in the chemical sciences and engineering to participate in the 2001 U.S. Young Observer Program. The researchers were selected to participate in the meetings of the IUPAC General Assembly and Congress in Brisbane Australia, June 29 - July 8, 2001. By participating in the international meetings, the researchers established international contacts while addressing scientific and policy issues. The 2001 Young Observers were Michelle M. Bushey (Trinity University), James A. Cowan (Ohio State University), Bernadette T. Donovan-Merkert (University of North Carolina, Charlotte), Brian P. Grady (University of Oklahoma), Luke Hanley (University of Illinois at Chicago), Jani C. Ingram (Idaho National Engineering & Environmental Laboratory), Russell Greig Kerr (Florida Atlantic University), Cynthia K. Larive (University of Kansas), Frank E. McDonald (Emory University), Vincent L. Pecoraro (University of Michigan), Timothy J. Wallington (Ford Motor Company), David Wustrow (Pfizer Global Research & Development).

The Young Observer Program was initiated in 1977 stemming from a growing need to engage younger scientists in the arena of international science policy making. During its near thirty year history, the program has helped to launch many distinguished careers and nurture strong international ties between chemists and chemical engineers.

The next Young Observer program will be held in Ottawa, Canada in August 2003. Further information on this program is available by clicking here.

USNC/IUPAC Hosts Informational Reception at ACS National Meeting
As part of the USNC/IUPAC effort to reach out to the U.S. chemical community, the USNC hosted an informational reception at the American Chemical Society national meeting in Chicago on August 27. The event enabled participants to interact with current members of IUPAC and discuss international issues of interest to the academic and industrial chemical sciences community.

U.S.-Japanese Workshop Proceedings on Mathematics Education Now Available
The U.S. National Commission on Mathematics Instruction (UNSC/MI) and the Mathematical Sciences Education Board (MSEB), jointly with Japanese mathematics educators, organized a workshop in Japan following the Ninth International Congress on Mathematics Education (ICME 9). The workshop considered classroom teaching as a medium for professional development to improve mathematics education at the elementary level. The workshop was developed jointly with U.S. and Japanese experts and featuring country-specific practices that form a platform to broaden thinking of mathematics educators in both countries. The proceedings are available on request as a resource for those who are responsible for the preparation and development of mathematics teachers. A video of the sessions will soon be available.

Opportunities for International Collaborations in Crystallography: USNC Develops Plans at Los Angeles Meeting
The U.S. National Committee for Crystallography, in cooperation with the American Crystallographic Association, is sponsoring a travel grant program for the 2002 IUCr Congress in Geneva. The travel grant is open to graduate students and post-doctoral fellows who are U.S. residents or at U.S. training institutions in any of the crystallographic, diffraction, and imaging sciences affiliated with the International Union of Crystallography. For further information, see the Travel Support Application below:

Following the successful Synchrotron Radiation Workshop in Campinas, Brazil, the USNC/Cr, in partnership with the USLC/IUPAP and the Brazilian Synchrotron Light Laboratory (LNLS), have initiated plans to hold a second workshop on structural biology in 2002.

2001 IEEE AP-S International Symposium and USNC/URSI National Radio Science Meeting
The 2001 IEEE AP-S International Symposium and USNC/URSI National Radio Science Meeting (Boston, MA, July 8-13, 2001) was cosponsored by the U.S. National Committee for the International Union of Radio Science (USNC/URSI) and the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers Antennas and Propagation Society (IEEE AP-S). The USNC/URSI Commissions B (Fields and Waves), A (Electromagnetic Metrology), and K (Electromagnetics in Biology and Medicine) conducted formal business meetings. In addition, there were technical sessions convened by Commissions D (Electronics and Photonics), F (Wave Propagation and Remote Sensing), G (Ionospheric Radio and Propagation), and H (Waves in Plasma). There were 30 USNC/URSI sessions and 21 joint sessions between the co-sponsoring organizations. The Raj Mittra Travel Grant Award, jointly sponsored by AP-S and USNC/URSI Commission B, was presented to winners from the Ukraine and Turkey. The overall attendance during the meeting exceeded 1,100 attendees.

Increasing Awareness about the Science of Mechanics
Last year, as part of the International Congress of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics (ICTAM2000) held in Chicago, Governor Ryan declared Monday, August 28, 2000, "Theoretical and Applied Mechanics Day" in the State of Illinois. Building on this concept, the University of Illinois Department of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics proposes that the last Monday in August each year be designated TAM Day. This corresponds with the efforts of the U.S. National Committee for Theoretical and Applied Mechanics (USNC/TAM) efforts to promote the awareness of mechanics. Mechanicians were invited to provide input to the website http://www.tam.uiuc.edu/tamday/ on how they would celebrate mechanics on TAM Day.

14th U.S. National Congress of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics Call for Papers
The Fourteenth U.S. National Congress of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics (USNCTAM14) will be held June 23-28, 2002 in Blacksburg, Virginia, USA. The host is the Department of Engineering Science and Mechanics of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. The deadline for submission of abstracts is January 31, 2002.

CODATA Highlights

The USNC/CODATA is currently planning several exciting international data management and policy initiatives, which are highlighted briefly below. To learn more about the committee's activities and for staff contact information, please visit its home page.

Proceedings of the 2000 USNC-CODATA Conference on Data for Science and Society were published earlier this year on the National Academy Press Web site.

Workshop on Scientific Data for Decision Making Toward Sustainable Development
Senegal River Basin Case Study
Scientific databases relating to the environment, natural resources, and health on the African continent are, with few exceptions, very difficult to create and manage effectively. Yet the creation of these and other types of databases--and their subsequent use to produce new information and knowledge for decision makers--is essential to advancing scientific and technical progress in that region and to its sustainable development. This workshop, which will be held in Dakar, Senegal in March 2002, will use a case study of scientific databases that have been created about the Senegal River basin (in Senegal, and in the bordering countries of Mali, Mauritania, and Guinea) and used for decision making for that region. More detailed information about this project may be found on the USNC/CODATA Web site.

First Inter-American Symposium on Selected Scientific Data Activities
The USNC/CODATA is organizing this symposium, which will be held September 28-29, 2002 in Montreal, Canada. The purpose of this meeting will be to provide a forum for Latin American scientists, data managers, and representatives of science funding organizations to meet with their U.S. and Canadian counterparts to discuss potential activities of mutual interest, exchange information about ongoing and planned research and related data activities, and identify and initiate specific new projects related to data management and exchange. Data activities in five discipline tracks will be covered, including global change research, hydrology and soil science, geographic data and GIS, biodiversity studies, and chemistry and materials science. A second follow-up meeting is anticipated to be held the following year in a Latin American country.

News from ICSU, Scientific Unions, and Other ICSU Bodies

World Summit on Sustainable Development (Rio+10)
ICSU has been officially invited by the United Nations to serve as the Organizing Partner for the International Scientific and Technological Community (IS&TC) for the extensive preparatory process underway for the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) to be held in Johannesburg, South Africa in early September 2002. The IS&TC will prepare a report for the United Nations providing a detailed review of the progress achieved by the IS&TC in follow-up to Chapters 31 and 35 of Agenda 21 and the future priorities and commitments by the IS&TC.

The ICSU Executive Board has established a "Consultative Group for the International Scientific and Technological Community" (CGST) to oversee and facilitate the preparations for the WSSD. The CGST includes the World Federation of Engineering Organizations (WFEO), Third World Academy of Sciences (TWAS), InterAcademy Panel (IAP), and International Social Science Council (ISSC). In addition, ICSU has established an ICSU-WSSD Task Force to ensure that ICSU provides its own targeted, relevant and visible contribution to the IS&TC preparatory process. For more information, please contact Wendy White at wwhite@nas.edu.

Open Science Conference on Global Change
BISO sponsored members from the U.S. National Committees for IUGS (Geology), IUGG (Geodesy and Geophysics), IUAES (Anthropology), Soil Science, INQUA (Quaternary Research), IUBS (Biology) and DIVERSITAS (biodiversity) to attend the Open Science Conference on Global Change in Amsterdam in early July, 2001. The conference was sponsored by the ICSU Global Change Programs - the World Climate Research Program, the International Geosphere-Biosphere Program and the International Human Dimensions of Global Change Program. Committee members were encouraged to submit posters and were asked to think about how their committees and disciplines could participate in global change research. More information about the conference is on the IGBP Website.

10th Pacific Science Inter-Congress Declared a Success
The 10th Pacific Science Inter-Congress, "The Integration of Natural and Social Science in the New Pacific Millennium", hosted by the University of Guam, was held June 1-6, 2001. Attendance was reported at 368 registrants. At the Opening Ceremony, the PSA Honorary Life Fellowship was awarded to Roland J. Fuchs, Director of START (and a member of the USNC/PSA), and the Shinkishi Hatai Medal from the Science Council of Japan was awarded to Howard A. Bern, a comparative endocrinologist from the University of California, Berkeley. The Opening Plenary Address, given by The Honorable Robert A. Underwood, Guam's Delegate to the U.S. Congress, was well received by the attendees. Sessions on a variety of topics - agriculture, archeology, biodiversity, body adornment, climate variability and climate change, communicating science, coral reefs, environmental ethics, globalization, librarianship, and water resources - were held throughout the Congress. For a full report on the Congress and the Council meetings, visit the USNC/PSA Website. The U.S. delegation to the PSA Council included Michael Sissenwine (chair), Katherine Ewel, and Roland Fuchs. Other USNC members attending the InterCongress were Peter Brewer, Steve McNutt, and Michael Ogden. The delegation was staffed by Lois Peterson.

34th International Congress of Physiological Sciences
The 34th International Congress of Physiological Sciences opened in Christchurch, New Zealand against the backdrop of a Maori ceremony and amidst the protests of the local antivivisectionists. The Congress, with the theme "From Molecule to Malady", attracted close to 2,000 scientists from around the world and included expert lectures, continuing medical education breakfasts, "synthesia" in which three to four leading scientists presented exciting developments within their fields, exhibits, and poster sessions. Highlights of the General Assembly, which took place on 26 August 2001, included the election of Alan Cowley (Medical College of Wisconsin) as President of IUPS; the approval of the U.S. bid to move the 2005 Congress from Washington, D.C. to San Diego; and the acceptance of the bid from Japan to host the 2009 Congress in Kyoto, Japan. Virginia Huxley, chair of the USNC/IUPS, led the U.S. delegation, which included Walter Boron, Barbara Horwitz, Hector Rasgado-Flores, Ingrid Sarelius, and Nora Terwilliger. Wendy White staffed the delegation. Gerald DiBona, Aleksander Popel, Artin Shoukas, Shu Chien, and Martin Frank also attended the General Assembly and Congress and participated in the meetings of the USNC.

International Union of the History and Philosophy of Science Congress
The 21st International Congress on the History of Science (ICHS), was held July 8-14, in Mexico City. The central theme of the congress was "Science and Cultural Diversity," with an emphasis on the history of science as practiced in various countries throughout the world. The General Assembly of the International Union of History and Philosophy of Science/Division of History of Science (IUHPS/DHS) voted in 1998 to hold this congress in Mexico City, representing the first time this congress has been hosted by a developing country. U.S. delegates in attendance were USNC Chair Wesley Shrum and John Beatty. Both worked hard to promote the ideas and proposed projects of the USNC/IUHPS, which will be included in the new grant to be submitted to NSF for review in January. A slate of new officers for the DHS were elected at the meeting, including Juan Jose Saldana as Secretary General, and Ekmelledin Ihsanoglu as President. They new officers emphasized their strong interest and commitment to reforming the Union, including greater transparency of Union procedures and projects, using informatics in running the union, and a change in election procedures. Wesley Shrum has been asked to serve on a working group for Union reform. This working group has been directed to examine ways to reform the DHS and to address visions for the future.

IUGG General Assemblies and Scientific Meetings
Every four years - between the quadrennial IUGG General Assembly - the IUGG's affiliated associations host their own General Assemblies and scientific meetings. Representatives from the USNC/IUGG attended five of these meetings, The IAMAS (meteorology) in Innsbruck, Austria, the IAHS (hydrology) in Maastricht, Netherlands, the joint IASPEI (seismology)/IAGA (geomagnatism and aeronomy) in Hanoi, Viet Nam and the IAG (Geodesy) in Budapest, Hungary. The IAPSO (Physical Oceanography) meeting will be held this fall and the IAVCEI was held last year in New Zealand. Reports from the delegates will be posted on the USNC/IUGG website later this fall. For further information, please check the IUGG Website.

World Chemistry Congress and the IUPAC General Assembly held in Brisbane, Australia
The 41st IUPAC General Assembly and 38th IUPAC Congress were held in Brisbane, Australia, June 29-July 8. The highlights of the IUPAC Council and Bureau Meetings are available on the IUPAC Website. Edwin Przybylowicz, chair of the USNC to IUPAC, led the U.S. delegation, which included John Malin, Daryle Busch, Michael Cesa, Parry Norling, Elsa Reichmanis, and George Wilson. Tamae Maeda Wong staffed this activity.

2002 CODATA Conference
The next international CODATA Conference will be held in Montreal, Canada from September 30 to October 3, 2002, immediately following the Inter-American Symposium. The members and staff of the USNC-CODATA are involved in all facets of the planning and organization of this event, in collaboration with the Canadian National CODATA Committee and international CODATA. Abstracts for contributed papers, posters, and technical demonstrations are now being solicited. Please see the CODATA Website for the First Circular and other related information about this conference.

International CODATA Working Group on Archiving Scientific Data.
This CODATA working group is preparing a white paper that will summarize the best practices in S&T data archiving and preservation, describe the major issues that need to be considered, identify other efforts in this area, and compile a comprehensive bibliography. The USNC/CODATA is supporting a U.S. subgroup of this international CODATA working group. The U.S. subgroup is being chaired by Dr. William Anderson, software architect and consultant. The chair of the international working group is Dr. Heston Phillips of the National Research Council of South Africa.

International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry - Chemical Weapons Convention
The first review conference for the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), to be held in the fall of 2003, is to include an assessment of how trends in S&T may affect the efforts to maintain an international prohibition on chemical weapons. The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) has accepted an offer from IUPAC to provide an independent evaluation of these technical issues. This appears to be the first time that an international scientific organization has been asked to provide formal input into an arms control treaty review conference. The NAS/NRC, in partnership with IUPAC, has initiated plans for such an assessment by convening an international group of advisors to explore how IUPAC, NAS/NRC, and other foreign Academies can provide the necessary scientific input for this review. This group met in the Hague in July 2001 and agreed on the outline of a workshop to be held in July 2002. Tamae Maeda Wong is BISO's staff liaison for this project.

International Conference on Women in Physics to be held in Paris, March 2002
The International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP) is organizing the International Conference on Women in Physics, to be held in Paris, March 7-9, 2002. This conference will focus on the under-representation of women in physics and the development of strategies to increase their participation. The IUPAP Working Group on Women in Physics is also conducting an international benchmarking study on issues concerning women in physics. The results of this study will be discussed at the conference and published on the Internet.

Other Activities

Board on International Scientific Organizations -- First Meeting
BISO met for the first time on 14 September 2001. Members discussed the goals and activities of BISO and the procedures by which they would remain active between meetings. Chair, Henry Metzger, provided briefings on ICSU and the other international organizations of interest to the Board and asked the members to form subcommittees. The ICSU subcommittee will draft a plan for evaluating ICSU and its various activities particularly as they relate to the General Assembly. The subcommittees for the USNCs will outline improved ways to inform the USNCs about ICSU activities and will consider developing criteria for determining whether a USNC is working well. The subcommittee on other international organizations will concentrate on the question of whether the U.S. is missing an important leverage point by not being a member of UNESCO. The minutes of this meeting are being reviewed by BISO members and will be posted on the BISO website when they are approved. BISO will meet next in March 2002.

USNC Chairs Meeting
BISO manages the activities of 25 U.S. National Committees (USNCs). In order to coordinate activities and increase the interaction among the USNCs, BISO holds meetings of the chairpersons of all the USNCs at approximately 18-month intervals. The first USNC chairs meeting was held on 16-17 March 2000; the second took place on 21-23 May 2001. Summaries of both meetings can be found on the BISO Web site.

Crowding the Rim Summit
In August 2001 Pat Leahy, Chair of the USNC/Geological Sciences and Dave Jackson, Chair of the USNC/IUGG, attended the Crowding the Rim Summit held on the campus of Stanford University. The summit was sponsored by the International Red Cross, the U.S. Geological Survey, the Circum-Pacific Council and Stanford University. The meeting brought together physical and social scientists, relief workers and policy makers to discuss natural hazard relief and mitigation in the Pacific Rim area. The RimSim simulation was introduced at the summit. The simulation asks small groups to assume the identities of policy makers in five fictitious countries. The simulators are asked to balance the need for growth with the knowledge that they live in a hazard prone region. Also introduced were interactive CDs showing past natural hazard locations in the Rim. BISO program officer Scott Spaulding was also in attendance.

Membership and Staff News

Membership News

We would like to welcome the newly appointed members of the Board on International Scientific Organizations:
Henry Metzger NAS, National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (appointed as Chair)
Cynthia Beall NAS, Case Western Reserve University
Merry Bullock, American Psychological Association
Jon Clardy, Cornell University
Roger Coate, University of South Carolina
Leal Anne Mertes, University of California, Santa Barbara
Goetz Oertel, Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (retired)
James Poirot NAE, CH2M Hill, Inc.
Mary Martha Rabinowitch, Consultant
Donald Saari NAS, University of California, Irvine
Hassan Virji, International START Secretariat

We would also like to welcome the following members to the USNC system:
David Arnett, USNC/IAU
C. Jacyn Baker, USNC/IUMS
Karin Bartels, USNC/IUPAC
Keren Bergman, USAC/ICO
Lonny Berman, USNC/IUCr
Kenneth Berns NAS/IOM, USNC/IUMS
David Bonner, USNC/IUPAC
James Breckinridge, Chair, USAC/ICO
Margaret Chesney, USNC/IUPsyS
Lloyd Cluff NAE, USNC/IUGS
Kay Deaux, Vice Chair, USNC/IUPsyS
Paul De Weer, USNC/IUPS
Debra Elmegreen, USNC/IAU
Gary Ernst NAS, USNC/IUGS
Kathryn Ely, USNC/IUCr
Anthony Fraser-Smith, USNC/URSI
Janet Goman, USNC/CODATA
John Greivenkamp, USAC/ICO
Priscilla Grew, USNC/DIVERSITAS
D. Jay Grimes, USNC/IUMS
Milt Hakel, Chair, USNC/IUPsyS
Anne Morris Hooke, USNC/IUMS
Grant Heiken, USNC/IUGS
Jan Hopmans, USNC/CODATA
Barbara Horwitz, USNC/IUPS
Barbara John, USNC/DIVERSITAS
Katherine Kantardjieff, USNC/IUCr
George Kenyon, Chair, USNC/IUBMB
M.B. Kirkham, USNC/SS
Vasudevan Lakshminarayanan, USAC/ICO
Susan Landon, USNC/IUGS
Glenda Lappan, USNC/MI
Stephen Lerner, USNC/IUMS
Donald Lewis, USNC/M
John Malin, USNC/IUPAC
Stanley Maloy, USNC/IUMS
Kevin Miller, USNC/IUPsyS
J. Bernard Minster, USNC/CODATA
Ramesh Narayan, USNC/IAU
Charles Nelson, USNC/IUPsyS
Charles Nelson, USNC/IUPsyS
Donald Nielsen, USNC/SS
Ian Pepper, USNC/SS
Jeffrey Post, USNC/IUCr
Donald Saari NAS, Chair, USNC/M
Carol Shearer, Chair, USNC/IUMS
Winthrop Smith, USAC/ICO
Robert Snyder, USNC/CODATA
John Spence, USNC/IUCr
Gilbert Strang, USNC/M
Barbara Tversky, USNC/IUPsyS

Finally, we would like to thank those members who have recently completed their terms:

James Beach, USNC/CODATA
Edith Flanigan, USNC/IUPAC
Elsa Reichmanis, USNC/IUPAC
Peter Stang, USNC/IUPAC
George Thomson, USNC/CODATA

Staff News

BISO would like to give a warm welcome to Craig Reed, who has replaced Leslie Lacey as our new Financial Associate. Craig has more than eight years experience as a financial analyst in the publishing, healthcare, and mortgage banking industries. Craig received his B.S. in Finance from the University of Maryland at College Park.

BISO also welcomes Laura Sheahan, who has replaced Paul Turner as Program Officer for the five USNCs in the biological sciences and the USNC for the International Union for the History and Philosophy of Science. Laura just completed a AAAS/ASM Congressional Science Fellowship with U.S. Congresswoman Louise Slaughter. Her experiences include work with the National Cancer Institute and the U.S. Geological Survey. Laura received her Ph.D. in Molecular Genetics and Biochemistry from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.

Milestones

The USNC/TAM is sad to note the passing of Daniel C. Drucker, a towering figure in theoretical and applied mechanics and a member of its committee, on Saturday, September 1, 2001. Dr. Drucker, Graduate Research Professor Emeritus, Department of Aerospace Engineering, Mechanics & Engineering Science, University of Florida, was a Member-at-Large of the IUTAM General Assembly. He won many awards for his research in photoelasticity, plasticity, and material behavior. He was a member of the National Academy of Engineering and received honorary doctoral degrees from five universities.

Donald Saari, Distinguished Professor of Economics and Professor of Mathematics at the University of California, Irvine was elected this year to membership in the National Academy of Sciences Economic Sciences Section. Dr. Saari's research has provided deep analyses of dynamical systems--of Newtonian n-body systems, showing collisions are improbable and non-collision singularities exist and of classical models of economic equilibrium, showing non--convergence and modifications that converge-and he has recast voting problems in geometric terms, thereby greatly clarifying the nature of voting paradoxes. He is Chair of the U.S. National Committee for the International Mathematical Union (USNC/Math) and also a member of BISO.