Newswise — H. Frederick Dylla has been selected to be the next Executive Director and CEO of the American Institute of Physics (AIP), a not-for-profit organization which publishes scientific journals and provides a wide range of services for individual scientists, students, the general public, and its ten Member Societies devoted to physics and related sciences. The announcement was made today by Mildred S. Dresselhaus, chair of AIP's Governing Board.
Dylla will start working at AIP on March 1, 2007. He will replace Marc H. Brodsky, who will retire on March 31 after more than 13 years at AIP's helm. Dylla will assume the role of CEO and Executive Director on the following day, April 1, 2007.
"Fred has already been an invaluable member of the AIP family," says AIP Governing Board Chair Dresselhaus. "His ideas and initiatives have enhanced AIP and its Member Societies for many years. As the next CEO and Executive Director, his experience, enthusiasm, and outward-looking nature will drive AIP in the right direction as we work with the rest of the scientific community to confront a future filled with challenges."
"I'm honored to be selected to be the next AIP Executive Director," says Dylla. "I am very optimistic for the outlook of the Institute to continue to grow in its role of supporting the value of physics for its Member Societies, the physics community and the world at large. I look forward to working with the Member Societies to continue to provide first-rate services and to collaborate on joint activities."
Dylla has been with the U.S. Department of Energy's Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility (Jefferson Lab) in Newport News, Virginia since 1990. During this time, he has concurrently held an Adjunct Professorship in Physics and Applied Science at the College of William and Mary. The author of over 190 publications, he received his B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. in physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Holding a career-long interest in science education, Dylla helped to found the K-12 science education programs at Jefferson Lab. He founded similar programs at Princeton University's Plasma Physics Laboratory, where he held various research and management positions from 1975 to 1990. While at Princeton, he helped develop technology for nuclear fusion reactors, particle accelerators, and materials processing.
At Jefferson Lab, Dylla served as the Chief Technology Officer and Associate Director for the Free-Electron Laser (FEL) program funded by the Office of Naval Research. He was responsible for initiating, building, and operating the FEL, which generates high-power light in many different regions of the electromagnetic spectrum. In addition to providing a tool for many branches of science with applications to defense and industry, the facility's technology has inspired a new generation of light user facilities under design and construction across the world.
Dylla served on the AIP's Governing Board in the early 1990s and rejoined the Board in 2004. He has been a member of AIP's Corporate Associates Advisory Committee for many years and hosted the Corporate Associates' Industrial Physics Forum at Jefferson Lab in 2002. Currently, he serves on the AIP Board as Chair of the Physics Today Advisory Committee and as a member of the Committee on Public Policy.
Dylla is a Past President of the AVS: Science & Technology of Materials, Interfaces, and Processing, one of AIP's ten Member Societies, where he was elected a Fellow in 1998 and is currently a distinguished lecturer for the society. He has helped to design imaginative sessions at AVS meetings on the 100th Anniversary of Electronics and Benjamin Franklin's contributions to vacuum sciences and related fields.
He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society, AIP's largest Member Society. He is a founding member of the Forum of Industrial and Applied Physics, currently the largest unit of the APS. He is an active member in numerous local and regional technology development organizations, including appointments by the Virginia governor to two scientific commissions, and has served on many national advisory committees for the Department of Energy, Department of Defense, and the National Science Foundation.
Outgoing CEO and Executive Director Marc Brodsky will have served AIP for thirteen and a half years when he retires at the end of March 2007. "I am pleased that AIP will be in such good hands," says Brodsky. "Fred brings valuable managerial experience to AIP and his stature in the physics community instills confidence that AIP will continue to serve its broad constituencies well."
During his tenure, Brodsky oversaw dramatic changes in AIP publishing and publishing services, as nearly all editorial, production, distribution and business processes were changed to deal with electronic publishing. All the journals and magazines AIP publishes for itself and others went onto the World Wide Web, increasing access to the physics literature to more people than ever before in history. AIP outreach programs and services expanded its informational offerings for the general public to the Web and many other media outlets, including regular science news segments to over 50 million nightly viewers of local TV news programs. He also actively defended AIP's freedom of the press rights on many fronts, including attempted government restrictions on the processing of manuscripts from certain countries and suits from some who tried to restrict knowledge from comparisons of journal prices.
Headquartered in College Park, Maryland, the American Institute of Physics is a not-for-profit 501(c)(3) membership corporation chartered in New York State in 1931 for the purpose of promoting the advancement and diffusion of the knowledge of physics and its application to human welfare.
AIP is one of the world's largest publishers of physics journals, and provides publishing services for a multitude of journals of physics societies and societies in allied areas of science and engineering. It is a pioneer and leader in electronic journal publication. AIP's ten Member Societies are dedicated to diverse areas of physics and related fields. AIP's flagship publication is the monthly magazine, Physics Today, with over 145,000 subscribers including all the individual members of AIP's Member Societies.
With an annual budget of approximately $75 million, AIP has a staff of 450 employees in its College Park headquarters and its Melville, NY publishing center.
There are over 134,000 scientists, engineers and educators represented by AIP through its 10 Member Societies. In addition, about 5,000 students in 700 chapters from colleges and universities take part in AIP's Society of Physics Students. The AIP Corporate Associates Program promotes connections between the people, ideas and resources of its 35 member companies.
More information on AIP can be found at http://www.aip.org
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