On 2 February, Amy Flatten became head of international affairs at the American Physical Society. She took the torch from Irving Lerch, who stepped down last December, 11 years after founding the program.
After earning her PhD in 1993 from Georgia Tech for research on polarization-preserving optic fibers as acoustic sensors, Flatten became a high-tech consultant. In one job, she led a team that designed a prototype of a ballistic missile alert communications system. In another, she looked at the impact of telecommunications systems on business. “I found that I enjoyed the bigger questions more than I enjoyed the detailed questions of the lab,” she says. At the same time, she adds, “I missed the international picture.” So she moved first to the US Department of Commerce, where she worked with industry and government on international telecommunications policy development, and then to the White House Office of Science and Technology...
