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News from ICTP 96 - Monitor
The first meeting of the InterAcademy Panel's (IAP) Executive Committee, since members voted last spring to move the secretariat to Trieste under the umbrella of the Third World Academy of Sciences (TWAS), was held on 22 January in the Enrico Fermi Building on the ICTP campus. Representatives of 10 science academies--including Africa, Australia, Brazil, China, France, Italy, Sweden, Turkey, the United Kingdom and the United States--took part in the event. Gianfranco Facco Bonetti, director general for the promotion of culture and cooperation in the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, announced that the Italian government would provide 1 million Euros (approximately US$900,000) to IAP over the next two years to help fund its programmes. Additional money, intended to cover IAP's operational costs, has been pledged by the municipality of Trieste, the region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia and the province of Trieste. IAP, which is comprised of nearly 80 science academies worldwide, is designed to bring together academies of all nations to discuss scientific issues of global concern. The panel's first activity, a workshop focussing on strategies for capacity building of science academies in Africa, will take place in Trieste this May. Workshops on science and the media and science and education are also planned as part of IAP's initial agenda.
Some 20 diplomats assigned to the permanent missions of member states of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) visited the Centre on 1-2 February. The diplomats, who hailed from Asia, Australia, Europe, Latin America, and the United States, discussed, among other items, potential IAEA/ICTP collaborative activities related to the new Agency sub-programme, "Preservation of Knowledge in Nuclear Science and Technology." The schedule included meetings with ICTP director Miguel Virasoro and the heads of ICTP scientific activities.
Arashmid Nahal (left), researcher at the Institute of Advanced Studies in Basic Sciences, Zanjan, Iran, and Luis Fernando Perez Quintian, researcher at the Department of Physics at the University of Buenos Aires, Argentina, shared the International Commission for Optics (ICO)-ICTP Award for 2001. Established in 1999, the ICO-ICTP Award is given to young researchers who were born and continue to live and work in developing countries. Nahal was honoured for his theoretical studies on polarised light effects in photosensitive films. Perez Quintian was honoured for his theoretical studies on the diffusion of light on surfaces. Each received US$500. The award ceremony took place in the ICTP Main Lecture Hall on 2 March, as part of the Winter School on Laser Spectroscopy and Applications. ICO, which has 44 institutional members, is dedicated to advancing global knowledge and high-level research findings on optics through conferences, meetings, schools, fellowships and awards. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., ICO is an affiliate commission of the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP).
Astronauts Touches Down at ICTP
Julie Payette, an astronaut with the Canadian Space Agency, delivered a public lecture, "Working in Space: A Challenge and a Privilege," in the ICTP Main Lecture Hall on 2 April. The event was organised by the United World College of the Adriatic located in Duino, near Trieste. In 1982, Payette earned an international baccalaureate at the United World College of the Atlantic in South Wales, UK. In spring 1999, she spent 10 days on the space shuttle Discovery, helping to deliver logistical support and supplies to the International Space Station in preparation for the arrival of its first crew.
Ugo Fano, 1912-2001
Ugo Fano, professor emeritus at the University of Chicago, whose
pioneering contributions to the theory of atomic and radiation
physics proved instrumental in the development of gas lasers and
the use of radiation in medical diagnosis and therapy, died in
Chicago on 13 February. Fano, who began his career working with
Enrico Fermi at the University of Rome in the 1930s, received
the Enrico Fermi Award from President Bill Clinton in a White
House ceremony in 1996. His influence in physics is reflected
in the number of discoveries that now bear his name, including
the "Fano effect" and the "Fano factor." He
visited ICTP on two occasions, in 1988 and in 1990, to attend
the Research Workshop in Condensed Matter, Atomic and Molecular
Physics.
