Ultrasonics Standing Committee Meeting in Chicago 2019

The summer meeting of the Ultrasonics Standing Committee for 2019 took place in Chicago, IL, USA, on Saturday, June 1^st. Twenty-five people participated, of whom nine were voting members. [mks_col] [mks_two_thirds]The meeting was chaired by Sandy Cochran, the UFFC Society Vice President for Ultrasonics. Nazanin Bassiri-Gharb, the UFFC Society President for 2018 – 19 called in and Paul Reynolds, the President Elect attended in person. Zuleima Davis of Conference Catalysts provided the secretarial support. A very welcome new member was Jeff Ketterling who has taken up the role of Technical Program Committee (TPC) Group 1 Co-Chair, to take over from Alfred Yu as Chair in due course. Alfred has put in sterling service in his time as the TPC Group 1 Chair, making a particularly strong contribution to the initiation of the new IEEE UFFC-S Special Topics Schools.[/mks_two_thirds] [mks_one_third] [/mks_one_third] [/mks_col] Key outcomes:

• UFFC-S is presently seeking two Deputy Vice Presidents for Ultrasonics, one in the Medical area and one in the Non-Medical area. Arrangements for this were discussed and it was agreed that Sandy Cochran would combine the two job descriptions that he had prepared into one, for circulation in the Ultrasonics community, with a view to the two Deputy VPs being formally appointed at the next USSC meeting in Glasgow, October 5^th, 2019.

• In the absence of Dan Stevens, UFFC-S Treasurer, Mark Schafer provided a helpful spontaneous report on the success of the IEEE International Ultrasonics Symposium 2018 which was held in Kobe, Japan, in September 2018. This broke several IUS records, including for the number of registrations. Furthermore, it was highly successful financially, allowing it to make a large contribution toward supporting the costs of the many successful initiatives of UFFC-S.

• Christine Démoré, an elected member of the UFFC-S Administrative Committee associated with Ultrasonics, who sits on the Education Committee, reported on the UFFC-S Ultrasonics Special Topics Schools. Three Schools were run, one in Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology, Shenzhen, China; one at the University of Colorado Boulder, CO, USA; and one at the National Institutes of Applied Sciences of Lyon, France. Christine highlighted that a total of 94 people attended the Schools, with 57 benefiting from UFFC-S financial support. These Schools were agreed to be very successful and repeat editions are planned in other locations for 2020.

• The locations for future symposia were discussed. USSC is very grateful to Jan D’hooge, who will chair a new ad hoc IUS Guidance Committee. This committee has two key documents, a future symposium specification and a checklist. It will provide guidance to those considering and preparing bids for future symposia. It is expected that at least three bids will be received for the symposium in N America in 2023. IUS will take place in Glasgow, Scotland, in October 2019; in Las Vegas, NV, USA, in 2020; in Xi’an, China, in 2021; and in Venice, Italy, in 2022.

• The committee unanimously accepted the winning nominees listed by Jafar Saniie, the USSC Awards Chair. These will be announced at the symposium in Glasgow, Scotland. The awards are the Early Career Investigator award for someone within 10 years after completing their highest degree; the Carl Helmuth Hertz Award for a mid-career investigator; and the Rayleigh Award, the highest honour of UFFC-S for achievement in the field of Ultrasonics.

• Nazanin Bassiri-Gharb focused her comments on a new UFFC-S Diversity and Inclusion Committee, chaired by Alp Sehirlioglu, and on how IEEE is planning to accommodate the European Union Plan S, for open access publishing. Paul Reynolds commented on how UFFC-S may maximise its value to individual members and also on how to enhance volunteering so that it can continue to attract high quality, committed volunteers to carry out its world leading program.