[ASA] ASA year-end newsletter

[Andrew Hopkins]

Dear ASA members,

    I would like to wish you all the best for the holiday season and the 
coming year.
It's always timely at this point in the year to reflect on the events over the 
course
of the year, and 2013 has been especially busy and productive for our community.

2013 had a fiery introduction, with the Wambelong bushfire on 13 January, having
a major impact on the Siding Spring Observatory and the Mopra telescope, and
our friends and colleagues in the Coonabarabran area. It was gratifying to see how
quickly the observatories returned to normal operations, and how well the 
community
came together to support those affected by the fires. The ASA pitched in, with 
a small
contribution to current and recent members impacted by the fires. Almost one year
on, things have progressed significantly, and we continue to look forward to new
developments, with a new astronomers' lodge being planned, as one major addition.

Many of our members were acknowledged for their contributions to scientific 
excellence
and the community.

In the 2013 Australia Day Honours we saw
- Professor Brian Schmidt receive Australia's greatest civic honour, Companion in
     the General Division of the Order of Australia,
- Professor Michael Dopita awarded Member (AM) in the General Division of
     the Order of Australia,
- Professor Brian Boyle awarded a Public Service Medal.

Other prestigious recognition of ASA members includes:
- Associate Professor Chris Blake awarded the Australian Academy of
     Science's Pawsey Medal,
- Professor Ken Freeman awarded the American Astronomical Society's
     Henry Norris Russell Lectureship, as well as the Australian Academy of 
Science's
     Matthew Flinders Medal and Lecture,
- Professor Bryan Gaensler elected to the Australian Academy of Science,

just to name a few. This is in addition to the dozens of other National and 
State-based
prizes and accolades that were awarded to our members across the country 
during 2013.

Our calendar was full of exciting events and interesting conferences and 
workshops:

- ASA members coordinated and participated in the ANITA and Astroinformatics 
Summer School,
     the ASA Women in Astronomy Workshop, the ASA ECR Workshop on "How to be an
     Effective Referee", plus the ASA Harley Wood Winter School and the ASA 
Annual Science Meeting.
- The MWA officially started operations, being opened by Minister Kim Carr, at 
a formal
     launch during the Monash 2013 Annual Scientific Meeting.
- A very large number of community workshops and conferences featured this year,
     including "Feeding, Feedback and Fireworks", the "Australian Astrobiology 
Meeting",
     "Reionisation in the Red Centre", the "ATCA 25th Anniversary Science 
Symposium",
     "Studying Galaxy Evolution - A Galaxy Zoo Conference", the "Australian ALMA
     Community Workshop", the "ATNF/AAO Bolton Symposium", the "3rd Australian
     Exoplanet Workshop", "Exploring the Radio Transient Sky", 
"Astroinformatics 2013:
     Knowledge from Data".

All of these were highlighted on the ASA calendar. Don't forget to use this 
resource
to advertise events you are organising:
http://asa.astronomy.org.au/calendar.html
You can send email to ASAcalendar at physics.usyd.edu.au for inclusion.

I would like to highlight the very successful 2013 ASA Annual Scientific 
Meeting and
Harley Wood Winter School coordinated by Monash, and thank the organisers for
their efforts in making those events a success. The 2014 ASM and HWWS will
be hosted by Macquarie University in Sydney, and I encourage you all to 
participate.
The call for the 2015 ASM and HWWS host has just been issued, and I look forward
to seeing a good range of competitive bids by the end of January.

Following the moves last year of Matthew Colless, taking up the Directorship
at RSAA, ANU, and Phil Diamond, taking up the SKA Director General role, we have
seen the arrival of two new Directors for our major national observatory 
facilities,
as well as Swinburne's Centre for Astrophysics and Supercomputing:
- Dr Lewis Ball began in March as Chief of CSIRO Astronomy and Space Science,
- Professor Warrick Couch began in April as AAO Director,
- Karl Glazebrook has been named as the new Director for Swinburne CAS, and
     will start his new role on 1 January 2014.

The society's journal, PASA, continues going from strength to strength. The
journal's impact factor of 3.12 in 2013 looks as though it will continue at
a similar level into 2014, placing it between PASJ and PASP.
PASA's increased impact is having an effect, with the journal needing
to significantly increase the number of pages it publishes, now at 900 pages
per year. We welcome two new members to the PASA Editorial Board,
Brad Gibson and Alexander Heger, and thank Daniel Price for extending
his term on the Board. We thank the outgoing Board members, Jeremy Mould
and Michael Burton for their contributions in continuing to ensure the
success of our society's journal.

This year saw the establishment of a new ASA chapter specifically focused on
early career researchers. Thanks to David Parkinson and the ECR steering
committee for shepherding the new chapter through its important first year.
Membership in the ECR chapter has grown fast, and new members can sign
up at http://asaecr.smp.uq.edu.au. In particular, we look forward to the next
ECR workshop to be run early to mid next year.

This year also saw the initiation of the planning process for the next Astronomy
Decadal Plan, for the period 2016-2025. This process will continue throughout
2014, and will rely on input from all members of the community, through
participation in Town Hall meetings, providing input through surveys, and
contributions from those on the many working groups and more. I strongly
encourage everyone to participate in these activities to ensure that we can
identify our priorities clearly and position our community as strongly as possible
for the coming decade.

Of course there were many exciting research results, funding outcomes, and other
developments during the course of the year, far too many to list in a single 
email.
I would like to add a personal thanks to Kate Brooks for her leadership of the
ASA over the past two years as President, and her mentoring of me during this 
time.
We have an amazingly talented, diverse and successful community comprising
Australian astronomy, and it is a privilege to be a part of such a fantastic 
community.

I hope that everyone enjoys a wonderful break, and comes back refreshed and
re-energised for what I'm sure will be an even more successful and eventful 2014!

Andrew Hopkins
ASA President

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