Minutes of the 2016 Business Meeting of the Particle Physics Division (PPD) June 16, 2016, University of Ottawa Agenda: Special guest (and cake…) CAP 2016 PhD thesis award Finances Membership Webpage PPD executive Preparation for 2017 Congress Attending: Christine Kraus (chair) Laurentian University Steven Robertson (deputy chair) McGill University/IPP Erica Caden Snolab/Queens/Laurentian University Doug Hallman Laurentian University Brigitte Vachon McGill University Andreas Warburton McGill University Ruben Sandapen Acadia University Art McDonald Queens University Nigel Smith SNOLAB Ubi Wichoski Laurentian University Ian Lawson SNOLAB Bob Kowalewski University of Victoria Steve Godfrey Carleton University Heather Logan Carleton University Gilles Couture UQAM Clarence Virtue Laurentian University Tony Noble Queens University Micheal Roney University of Victoria John Martin University of Toronto Wolfgang Rau Queens University Akira Konaka TRIUMF Fabrice Retiere TRIUMF Meeting called to order Introduction of PPD executives (Christine Kraus, chair; Steven Robertson, deputy chair; Jean-Francois Arguin, past chair, not present) ——Special guest (and cake…)——— Prof. Art McDonald was congratulated on behalf of the division for his recent Nobel Prize. A cake was served to celebrate his achievement. Comments from Art McDonald: Views Laureate status as opportunity to promote subatomic physics in Canada. Is currently serving on a committee to evaluate the current funding situation and to recommend changes for the future. Input is needed from PPD, although no formal mechanism for consultation has yet been specified. It is clear there are issues not only at “Big Science” level, but also at “Discovery” level, (e.g. CFI vs NSERC balance, communication etc). The stochastic funding of CFI is also problematic; it needs a solid basis if forward planning is to be possible. There is also the question of how TRIUMF (and SNOLAB) fit into all this. ———CAP 2016——— Organization of 2016 Congress PPD sessions: An effort was made this year to restructure PPD sessions to avoid conflicting parallel sessions and encourage mixing between related divisions (e.g. DTP and DNP), and within sub-disciplines of the PPD (e.g. collider experiments and underground experiments). This also included reducing the total number of (30min) invited talks in order to make room for additional contributed talks. Two extra dark matter sessions were added to accommodate large volume of contributed talks in this area. These efforts seemed reasonably successful this year, and further efforts in this direction will be made for the 2017 congress. The reduction of the congress program from 5 to 4 days was also noted. In total, 14 invited talks and 49 contributed talks were scheduled, including 29 student talks in the oral competition (the most of any division). A total of 5 posters were presented, but only 2 were in the competition. Consequently, 3 division prizes were awarded for the student oral competition and no divisional prize was awarded for the poster competition. The session convenors, judges and speakers were all thanked for their contributions. T. Noble: PPD should consider a joint session (or other form of coordination) with low-dose measurement community as these techniques are very relevant to dark matter/underground PPD community. A. Warburton: CAP has a separate mechanism for sending talk titles; may be able to exploit this to get an earlier breakdown of requested contributions for the purpose of planning of sessions, prior to actual scheduling of talks. ——PhD thesis award———— The PPD thesis prize was awarded for the first time this year, to Dr. Patrick de Perio. Dr. de Perio received a $500 award from the division, and presented a 30min invited talk at the CAP congress. He will also present an invited seminar at TRIUMF, and will publish a 2-page thesis summary in Physics in Canada. Detail of this award are available at https://www.cap.ca/en/div/ppd/theses . Normally, the PPD Deputy Chair (Robertson) would chair the selection committee, however he recused himself due to conflict of interest. An ad hoc selection committee was appointed, consisting of Carsten Kraus (chair, University of Alberta), Randy Sobie (University of Victoria) and Hiro Tanaka (University of Toronto). No prize was awarded in 2015, as only 4 nominations were received. Instead, nominees from 2015 were considered along with the nominees in the current competition. In total, 9 nominations were considered. The selection committee members were thanked for their efforts. As this was the first year that a competition was held, the rules will be reviewed in light of the experience in the 2016 competition. PPD members were asked to encourage nominations for the 2017 competition, as failure to receive 5 nominations will result in no prize being awarded. ————Finances————— Chair presented a summary of expenditures in the past year. Overall, the division appears to be in good shape. Budget is compatible with funding one invited plenary speaker every second year. T. Noble: Should we consider sponsoring a thesis prize presentation at WNPPC as well? C. Kraus: We will explore options and present a proposal (if appropriate) next year ————Membership———— 2017 Division Fees Annual fees are currently $10/year. It was noted that some other divisions have recently raised their fees (for example DNP increased this year from $10 to $15), but PPD Division finances are currently in good shape and there is no proposal from the executive to raise them this year. Currently 318 PPD members, including 67 graduate and 98 undergraduate students. This is an increase from 289 in the previous year. —————Webpage————— https://www.cap.ca/en/div/ppd Thanks were conveyed to Francois Corriveau for continuing to maintain the PPD web pages. —————PPD executive———— Election of Executive Members A request for nominations for the position of PPD Deputy Chair was distributed to PPD members on June 6th. Three nominations were received and two nominees, Claudio Kopper (University of Alberta) and Alison Lister (University of British Columbia), agreed to stand for election. Voting was open for two days from June 13 - 15, during which time 29 ballots were cast. Alison Lister was elected by simple majority, and both candidates were thanked for their willingness to serve the PPD community. It was noted that this is the first year in which an election was held for the PPD Deputy Chair position; in 2015 Steven Robertson was elected by acclamation, and in years prior to that the Deputy Chair was appointed by the Chair without an election. Consequently, feedback was solicited regarding the election procedure. Ensuing discussion suggested a slightly earlier schedule for the election, and circulation of CV’s and/or statements from the candidates; this will be taken under advisement by the PPD executive for the next election. —————Preparation for 2017 Congress—————— Currently soliciting suggestions for Hertzberg lecture speaker for 2018 congress (Art McDonald is already selected for 2017), and PPD invited plenary speaker for 2017 congress. Other suggestions regarding the structure or content of the program are also welcome. Program committee meeting is in October so please send nominations and feedback soon. Contributed posters currently much less popular in PPD than oral presentations. Executive will consider ideas to make this option more attractive to potential contributors. ——AOB———— T. Noble: Thank you to Christine for her service as PPD chair! Meeting adjourned