Jack Wilson, who had been serving as the interim president of the University of Massachusetts since last August, was named president of the system in March. He is a past chair of the American Physical Society’s forum on education, was an executive officer with the American Association of Physics Teachers, and was on the governing board of the American Institute of Physics. Wilson was instrumental in AIP’s move from New York to College Park, Maryland, and made the preliminary political and legal arrangements for the creation of a tax-exempt American Center for Physics.
Next month, Viola Vogel and her research group will move to ETH Zürich to establish a new institute for biologically oriented materials. There, researchers will study the engineering principles of biological nanosystems to inspire new technologies, from tissue engineering to biomedical therapies. Vogel is a professor in the department of bioengineering and an adjunct professor in the...