It is my honor and pleasure to announce that the American Meteorological Society (AMS) has been elected a Member Society of the American Institute of Physics after a unanimous vote of the AIP Corporation that concluded yesterday. AMS is no stranger to AIP; the society has been an AIP Affiliated Society since 1983—that's 30 years—and has been an active supporter and participant in AIP outreach, statistics, and media programs. We welcome their increased participation in AIP programs and the mutual promotion of related AMS programs that comes with AIP membership.
AMS is the premier scientific society for meteorology and related atmospheric, oceanographic and hydrologic sciences. The AMS membership base is 14,000 strong, with well-balanced, almost equally proportional, representation from the academic, private and government sectors. More than 3,000 of its members are students, and 1,700 are international members. AMS programmatic activities span an extensive publication program with ten scholarly journals and a high impact journal-magazine hybrid (the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society), a major annual meeting and ten topical meetings. Their active outreach programs are managed by more than 100 volunteer boards that report to the AMS Council. For details on this wide range of activities, please peruse the presentation that Keith Seitter, executive director of AMS, gave to the AIP Governing Board on November 12.
AIP has valued AMS's significant and consistent support over the last decade of our public science programs, particularly with the relaunch of AIP's multi-society supported Inside Science and its predecessor program Discoveries and Breakthroughs Inside Science. AMS has considerable expertise in public science education, given the fact that the most highly visible scientist in front of the public on a daily basis is the local weather forecaster on broadcast and cable television channels.
While AMS is very pleased to be able to bring Physics Today to all of its members, they also look forward to participating in our history, public policy, and student outreach (reciprocal membership and student reporter), programs. AIP is strengthened with more active ties to AMS's considerable reputation and experience in promoting its science to its members, our decision makers in government, and the general public.
We welcome AMS to the AIP family and look forward to increased collaboration and partnership.