The Quantum Pontiff

March is ages away, but it is time to start planning for the APS March meeting, to be held in the beautiful rose city, Portland, Oregon (Note to skiers that Mt. Hood is just a short distance away :) ) Anyway an important part of the March meeting are invites sessions and the quantum computing/information/foundations topical group GQI is in charge of a few of these sessions. Want to nominate a session or invited speaker? Now's your chance. Here's the email that was sent out Friday:

Dear GQI members,

This is an email to solicit from you proposals for GQI sponsored invited sessions and invited speakers at the 2010 APS March Meeting (Portland, Oregon March 15-19, 2010.) Invited sessions and speakers are a great opportunity to highlight the most exciting results emerging from quantum information science and quantum foundations to the broader physics community.

The website for submitting proposals is now open at
http://meetings.aps.org/aps_invited/Invited/LoginForm.cfm?MT=MAR10&UNIT=GQI
and will remain open until September 15, 2009.

The GQI Program Committee has the opportunity to organize three invited sessions at the March Meeting. Proposals for these can only be submitted through the above web site. The deadline for submitting nominations is September 15, 2009.

In making proposals, please keep in mind the following APS rules: (i) no individual may receive an invitation two years in a row (unless he or she is a winner of a Prize in the second year); (ii) a single invited session is not permitted to have two speakers from the same institution (i.e., the same university or laboratory). A chair and a speaker from the same institution is acceptable.

Proposals for single invited presentations will also be considered for inclusion in the March Meeting Focus Sessions. This year, the planned focus sessions are
1. Superconducting qubits, 2. Semiconducting/solid state qubits, 3. Foundations of quantum theory, 4. Recent progress in quantum algorithms and quantum computational complexity, 5. Topological quantum computing,
and, jointly with DAMOP,
6. Hybrid AMO-condensed matter systems for quantum information science

To make a nomination, you will need to create an account at the web site and fill in the nomination form. You will need to provide reasonably detailed information about the proposed invited speakers. The more information you provide, the better the chance your proposal will be selected. If you proposal a single individual, you should give a justification for inclusion in one of the above Focus Sessions. If you propose a complete symposium, you should provide detailed information about the proposed topic of the session. Also, please indicate your preference for inclusion in the invited program of either the March Meeting or the DAMOP Meeting. Note that a full invited session at the March Meeting includes 5 speakers.

The GQI program committee will select March meeting sessions in the fall, while Focus session organizers will determine the single invited talks to be included in their sessions.

Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions (dabacon [nospam @] cs.washington.edu)