The American Physical Society [1] has elected the University of Chicago's Michael S. Turner [2] vice president as of Jan. 1, 2011. The election puts Turner in line to serve later as president-elect, president, and then past-president in successive years.
Turner, the Bruce V. and Diana M. Rauner Distinguished Service Professor in Astronomy & Astrophysics [3] and Director of the Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics [4] at UChicago, will become the first astrophysicist to serve as APS president.
In his candidate's statement, Turner wrote that his priority as president will be to ensure that the APS "be a strong and respected voice for the importance of basic research to the long-term health of the country and the world."
Founded in 1899, the APS is the world's leading physics organization, representing 48,000 physicists in academia, national laboratories and industry.
Links:
[1] http://www.aps.org/
[2] http://experts.uchicago.edu/experts.php?id=152
[3] http://astro.uchicago.edu/
[4] http://cfcp.uchicago.edu/