Issue 1, 2014
Issue 5, 2007
Picnic outside Nordita
Nordita has the pleasure of having Professor Frank Wilczek as a visiting professor during the fall of 2007. Frank Wilczek received the Nobel price in 2004 together with David Gross and David Politzer for ?the discovery of asymptotic freedom in the theory of the strong interaction?. Institutes in the Nordic countries are encouraged to use this opportunity to invite Professor Wilczek to visit their institutes.
Nordita also had the pleasure to welcome Professor Risto Nieminen from Helsinki University of Technology as the new director of Nordita for a three-year period starting July 1st, 2007. Ulf Wahlgren remains at Nordita as deputy director until June 30th, 2008.
The recruitment of three assistant professors to Nordita is now completed. In the newsletter from June three candidates were presented, Eddy Ardonne, Stefan Hofmann and Markus Porto. Markus Porto has since withdrawn his application, and the offer went to Jani-Petri Martikainen from Helsinki. Jani-Petri is active in the field of ultracold gases, and he has accepted the offer. Stefan Hofmann will arrive in the beginning of October, Eddy Ardonne in December and Jani-Petri Martikainen in early January. Among the new fellows Raphaël Plasson, Lars Samuelsson and Petri Käpylä are already in place.
New assistant professor positions and a number of fellowships will be announced during the fall. When the positions are filled Nordita will have two professors, five assistant professors and ten fellows in Stockholm, in addition to the Nordita professors remaining in Copenhagen.
Five scientific programs were granted support for 2008-2009. The first program, Exotic Quantum Liquids, started August 15th and continues until September 30th, and the Nordita house is now bristling with life. An invitation to propose programs for 2008-2009 was posted on www.nordita.org/propose in June. The board has decided to prolong the period to 2008-2010, and to change the deadline for proposals from October 15th to November 15th; the web page has been modified accordingly.
The Scientific Advisory Committee convened in Stockholm August 20th and 21st to discuss recruitments and other strategic issues. Present during the discussions were Renata Kallosh, Susan Coppersmith and Graham Ross from the committee, Risto Nieminen, Ulf Wahlgren, Axel Brandenburg and John Hertz from Nordita, Susanne Viefers and Matti Manninen from the board and Anders Karlhede, dean of the mathematics-physics section at Stockholm University. The discussions were very productive. The committee recommended among other things the board to announce the assistant professors in high energy physics and soft condensed matter/biological physics, and to set up a search committee to find possible candidates for the position as professor. The description of the professor position will be decided later.
The board decided on their meeting on August 31st to follow the recommendations of the committee. The assistant professor positions have been announced on the web at www.nordita.org/positions. The position is also announced in Physics Today and on the web. Fellowships for 2008-2009 have also been announced on www.nordita.org/positions. The application procedure for the fellowships will be posted on he same web page in a few days.
A ?kick-off? day is planned for November 8, 2007. People from the department of education, the presidents of the universities, the Nordita staff and representatives from the faculties will be invited. The program will be announced soon.
The Director
If you have information about meetings or other items that would be useful to include in Nordita News, please send it to Anne Jifält, Nordita, email: anne@kth.se.