Pierre Meystre

Candidate for General Councillor

Biographical Summary
Pierre Meystre obtained his Physics Diploma and PhD from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, and the Habilitation in Theoretical Physics from the University of Munich. Following a postdoctoral position at the University of Arizona Optical Sciences Center and nine years as a staff scientist at the Max-Planck Institute for Quantum Optics in Germany he returned to the University of Arizona in 1986. He is currently a Regents Professor of Optical Sciences and Physics, holds the Chair of Quantum Optics, and is Director of the B2 Institute. His research includes theoretical quantum optics, atomic physics, and ultracold science. At the B2 Institute he is also increasingly engaged in renewable energy and smart grid R&D. He has published over 280 refereed papers and is the author of the text "Elements of Quantum Optics", together with Murray Sargent III, and of the monograph "Atom Optics." He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society, the Optical Society of America, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a recipient of the Humboldt Foundation Research Prize for Senior US Scientists and of the R. W. Wood Prize of the Optical Society of America. Dr. Meystre has served on numerous national and international committees. He is past-Chair of the Division of Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics of the American Physical Society, past-Chair of the National Research Council standing committee on atomic, molecular and optical science (CAMOS), and currently serves on the NRC Board on Physics and Astronomy

Candidate's Statement
Physics is going through extraordinary developments, with exciting advances at all frontiers of our field, from the lowest to the highest extremes of energy and power, from the smallest to the largest spatial dimensions, and from the shortest times to the age of the Universe. There is high expectation that the near future will bring us discoveries that will change profoundly our understanding of the physical world. And at the same time we are witnessing many other encouraging developments, such as a slowing down of the balkanization of physics as new advances and emerging directions of research lead to the rapprochement of subfields that had long been going their own way. These are truly the best of times.

… But these are also the worst of times: Society is faced with a number of daunting challenges associated with limited natural resources, our pursuit of increased health, comfort, and security, and a growing world population that justifiably strives for a quality of life comparable to ours, to be more "like us." Successfully confronting these challenges requires a global and multidisciplinary approach where physicists will play a pivotal role. But we will also need to learn how to collaborate closely with a broad range of scientists, engineers, social scientists, and policy makers, and become familiar with their language, methods, and ways of thinking. At the same time, we must work relentlessly to increase scientific literacy, starting from K-12 STEM education and reaching broadly into the general population --- no small challenge in these days when science is under attack from many directions, education budgets are being slaughtered, and obscurantism is undergoing a disturbing and downright scary revival And finally, success will require that we finally bring to an end the "luxury" of ignoring and wasting half the brains in the country: More than ever, we must work tirelessly toward increasing the fraction of women and minority physicists from their still unacceptably low level.

If elected to serve as General Councillor, my goals will be simple: I will work hard to help preserve and further enhance the best of times, and assist as much as I can in chipping away at the worst of times.

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