The 2026 mid-year AdCom General Meeting was held virtually on Saturday, June 27 (9:30AM EDT). The Finance and Communications committee meetings were also held virtually in advance. Communications met on Friday June 26. The Finance Committee met prior to the General Meeting at 7:30AM Saturday. Total attendance during the General Meeting was 40 individuals, including 19 voting members. Total AdCom member attendance was around 68%.

President Sara Pozzi presented updates on the progress of her three priorities outlined in last year’s retreat: Increase the reach and impact of our Society; Further engage students and young professionals, and strengthen relationships with IEEE, TAB and other Societies. The three task forces created in Spring 2025 have been an important piece in the progress of all three priorities. She noted several recent developments in these efforts including the formation of a new Broadening Participation Committee under Chair Jane Lehr, the new NPSS Virtual Nuclear Engineering Summer School underway this Summer (June 1 – July 15 with over 1600 registrants), two new student chapters in Colombia and Costa Rica as well as a very active Education School program within NPSS. Our past president Vesna Sossi is the new IEEE Division IV Director Elect. NPSS will have multiple representatives at the August IEEE Society and Council Congress in Glasgow, Scotland (not yet underway as of this report). Finally, as noted in Action 11.4.1 taken by AdCom at the June meeting, NPSS will officially become a supporting Society for the IEEE Council on Superconductivity.

Ralf Engels noted in the Treasurer’s Report that closing finances for several recent conferences are coming in significantly over budget estimates. This creates budget forecasting issues. He reminded all technical committee chairs and conference treasurers to please make regular updates to the NPSS Budget Tool on your conference budget status. This is the primary source of information used to make the forecasts. This is particularly important now as the new 2027 budget process started in July. Ralf also reported that published page counts for all three journals (TNS, TPS and TRPMS) this year are ahead of the 2025 pace.

On the topic of page counts, Publications Chair Paul Dressendorfer noted that submissions are up significantly for our journals. There is growing concern across IEEE that AI may be contributing to these increases. Within the publications market there is promise for authors and publishers that AI can more efficiently manage submissions but also the very real potential for abuse. Current estimates range from 2-40% for paper submissions coming from “paper mills”.  Paul commented that generative AI needs to be fully disclosed with any submission, and ultimately the human authors are responsible for content. IEEE has also begun piloting AI tools to help enhance the editorial process.

The NPSS membership survey that was held at the beginning of the year is required every five years to establish a representative elected membership within AdCom that is consistent with the technical interests of our society. Vice President Lorenzo Fabris reported on the plan to adjust allocations for the eight technical committees. The new distribution will see three TCs gain a seat and three will lose one seat: CANPS(1), FTC(1), NMISC(3), PAST(2), PSAC(2), PPST(1), RE(3) and RI(3). This allocation will be implemented via a soft transition over the next three years and will be complete starting in 2029.

In other news from the meeting, the Welcome Grants approved in March to support new student IEEE/NPSS membership was changed from the original motion. Instead of cash payouts to individuals, higher-value gifts (e.g. power banks, water bottles, Swiss Army knives) were purchased to give to those who enrolled with new memberships in 2026. This was rolled out at the Real Time Conference in Elba, Italy at the end of May. Stefan Ritt reported that it was quite successful with eight new memberships at the conference. He is hopeful that these will be “high value” memberships and will continue past the end of 2026. IEEE USA Liaison Brendan Godfrey gave AdCom an update on the status of proposed US Office of Management and Budget (OMB) research grant changes which were currently up for public comment. These are concerning and burdensome changes that, if enacted, will significantly impact researchers’ ability to both receive and maintain federal grants. Since the closing of the comment period (July 13) the comments have been overwhelmingly negative. Ultimately it will be up to Congress to kill OMB’s new grantmaking proposal, and he advocated for NPSS members to contact their representatives. 

On a final note, we have two candidates from the AdCom elected membership who are running for NPSS Vice President (starting in 2027). Mark Tillack is the Fusion Technical Committee elected member. He is in his third year in that position although he has been involved with NPSS and on AdCom in past years as well. He retired from UCSD in 2016 with emeritus status but is still actively involved in Fusion research and development. Tor Raubenheimer is in his last year as one of the PAST committees elected members. He is a Professor of Particle Physics and Astrophysics at Stanford University, specializing in advanced accelerator systems ranging from Linear Colliders and Free Electron Lasers (FELs) to Plasma Accelerators. He currently splits his time between Stanford and a San Francisco-based startup. Both candidates gave brief presentations at the general meeting and responded to questions from AdCom membership. The election will be held this Fall, and results will be announced at the November AdCom meeting.

The November AdCom General Meeting will be held on Saturday November 13, 2026, on the final weekend of the NSS/MIC/RTSD conference in Granada, Spain.  My report on that meeting will be in the December Newsletter.

Actions taken at the March 7, 2026 AdCom general meeting

Actions from Technical Committees

11.1.1   NMISC Motion to Approve an Amendment to the NMISC C&BL

NMISC amended their C&BL to reference the IEEE process for removal of appointed and elected membership within their committee. None opposed – motion passed by consensus.

11.1.2  PAST Motion to Modify Terms of the Elected PAST AdCom Representation

PAST is electing both their AdCom representatives this Fall. In order to stagger future elections the highest vote getter will serve a four year term while the second place winner will serve a two-year term with option to run again for a full four year term. None opposed – motion passed by consensus.

11.1.3  PSAC Motion for AdCom to Approve Payment of the 2026 APCOPTS Conference TCS Fee ($1450). None opposed – motion passed by consensus.

Actions from Functional Committees:

11.2.1  FinCom Motion to approve Coalition for Plasma Science (CPS) Funding for 2025 and 2026

FinCom endorsed a motion to approve a transfer of $24K in funding to CPS for both 2025 ($12K retroactively) and in 2026 ($12K). Note that the 2025 funding was already approved. It was never transferred. None opposed – motion passed by consensus.

11.2.2  FinCom Motion to Rename and Fund an Increase for the PSAC Student Paper Awards.

FinCom endorsed a motion for AdCom to approve PSAC renaming their Student Paper Awards to the “IEEE NPSS Steven J. Gitomer Student Paper Awards”. In addition, AdCom should approve an increase in the award honorarium from $500 to $1,000, to be funded entirely through an endowment established by the Steven J. Gitomer Foundation. None opposed – motion passed by consensus.

11.2.3  FinCom Motion to Approve a $30K budget for the Communications Committee in 2027

FinCom endorsed a motion for AdCom to approve a $30K budget for ComCom in 2027. None opposed – motion passed by consensus.

New Business

11.4.1  Motion for NPSS to Become a Member Society of The IEEE Council on Superconductivity (CSC)

Paolo Craievich moved, and Tor Raubenheimer seconded the motion for AdCom to approve becoming a member society of IEEE CSC. None opposed – motion passed by consensus.

David Abbott can be reached via email at [email protected]