Dear DPS community, colleagues and friends,
It is my honor and my pleasure to take the office of the DPS committee Chair for the next year. We are all, those you have elected to leadership positions for the committee, grateful for the trust you have placed in us to represent the interests and concerns of our group in planetary sciences, ensuring the advancement of our scientific research.
The incoming committee members or with new responsibilities are:
congratulations to:
– Scott Murchie (our new Vice-Chair)
– Carol Raymond (our new Past Chair)
– Matija Cuk (Environmental Affairs Subcommittee Chair)
– A’Laura Hines (Student representative)
– Hannah Jang-Condell (member)
– Tim Livengood (Nominating Subcommittee Chair)
– Conor Nixon (member)
I wanted to give my heartfelt thanks to the committee members who are leaving us at this time and whose service to the community has been instrumental:
– Catherine Neish (DPS Past Chair)
– Morgan Cable (Nominating Subcommittee Chair)
– Serina Diniega (member)
– Lori Feaga (Prize Subcommittee)
– Brian Jackson who will remain as our Education and Public Outreach Chair !
– Jack Lissauer (Environmental Affairs Subcommittee Chair)
– Samuel Myers (student representative)
– Carrie Nugent (Prize Subcommittee)
– Geronimo Villanueva (Prize Subcommittee)
We also want to thank and congratulate the organisers of this year’s DPS Meeting in Boise, Idaho. I’m convinced that all the attendees had a wonderful meeting in Boise, filled with excellent science and great opportunities for networking. A special note also for our younger members who, I’m sure, find at the DPS meetings a chance to talk to mentors and share results and ideas, which, constitutes one of the most important aspects of our conferences. I would like to personally thank everybody who worked on its organisation and in particular Brian Jackson, Kat Volk and Parvathy Prem. I would also like to pay tribute to the work of the DPS committee members who have assisted with this meeting and at the same time tackled other matters we dealt with in our Division this past year, especially Carol Raymond, Past Chair of the Committee, and other officers, as well as the AAS staff.
In order to improve our future meetings please look out for a survey that the AAS will circulate shortly and share with us your opinion on the past meeting and ideas for future ones. Please take a moment to fill the survey so we can better anticipate requests from the community and act on them. Note that the 2025 is going to be an EPSC-DPS joint meeting in Helsinki, Finland (7-12 September 2025): https://www.europlanet-society.org/epsc/
I look forward in the future to working with the incoming Vice-Chair Scott Murchie, the DPS Committee members and all the subcommittees, to capitalise on the planetary science successes, to ensure a healthy future and to champion our community’s science in the US and internationally. In this we will need all the inputs, ideas and concerns that you can share with us, so don’t hesitate to call upon committee members in order to make us more aware and efficient in the face of current and future challenges.
With best wishes,
Athena Coustenis