We are living in a time when things change quickly. It is difficult for anyone to stay on top of all the news or immediately perceive how changes in policy could impact science. Luckily, the AAS is very adept at following and understanding the latest developments. The AAS sends out general updates via their email list and occasionally releases Action Alerts when they encourage their members to get involved. To ensure that everyone knows about these Action Alerts, we are adding a section to SolarNews called “AAS Action Alerts.” Below is the Action Alert released by AAS last week. If we receive time critical Action Alerts, we will send out special issues of SolarNews.
The SPD committee received so many great responses from our call for feedback on the NASA Heliophysics Community meeting. I tried to respond personally to every email with my thanks, but if I missed you, let me offer it now. Thank you, thank you, thank you! The responses were thoughtful, considered, and very diverse. Some in our field were excited about the new direction, while others were concerned. I love that everyone has a distinct perspective – people generally don’t become scientists because they think like everyone else does. It did, however, make it difficult to distill the information into a single letter. The SPD Committee, with some help from our community, worked hard to capture all the thoughtful feedback in a cohesive way. We will share our response to Headquarters soon.
In our last Chair’s Chat, I filled you in on the elected members of the SPD committee. There are many others, though, that volunteer countless hours to help our community function. Today, I want to highlight our SolarNews editor, Sherry Chhabra. Sherry volunteers her time to put together these SolarNews releases every two weeks and, if there is time critical information, more frequently. SolarNews is how we keep the community informed of what is happening in the SPD, how we learn new science nuggets or about upcoming meetings, and how we remember our colleagues who have left us. For me, SolarNews has always helped me feel more connected to you all, even more so now. Without Sherry, or the previous editors before her, we would not have this great community resource. Thank you so much Sherry for the work you do for the SPD!
Until next time,
Amy