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ÃÛÌÒÊÓƵ University Professor and Chair of the Physics Department, Philip Cole, PhD., represented the United States at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) at its headquarters in Vienna, Austria April 16 -18 for a Consultancy Meeting to Design the 14th International Topical Meeting on the Applications of Accelerators (AccApp’20). The IAEA is the nuclear science arm of the United Nations. 

Cole is the General Chair for the AccApp’20 conference, which will be held in Vienna in early April 2020. During the 14th international topical meeting on the applications of accelerators, the Accelerator Applications Division of the American Nuclear Society (ANS) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) began planning the 2020 meeting.  The General Co-Chair, Aliz Simon, Ph.D., and the Technical Program Chair, Valeriia Starovoitova, Ph.D., who are both nuclear physicists at the IAEA, and Paula Cappelletti, the ANS director of meetings and exhibits, joined Cole at the preparatory meeting. Additional attendees included: IAEA Section Head for Physics, Danas Ridikas, Ph.D.; IAEA Section Head for Radioisotope Products and Radiation Technology, Joao Alberto Osso, Jr., Ph.D.; Director of the IAEA Division of Physical and Chemical Sciences, Melissa Denecke, Ph.D.

The purpose of the meeting is to provide an international forum for discussing various applications of particle accelerators for scientific, medical and industrial uses. Nuclear physicists, accelerator physicists, nuclear engineers and other experts in accelerator applications are all invited to participate in meeting slated for April 6-9, 2020.

“We were able to set the logistics, venue and overview of the scientific program for AccApp’20,” said Cole. “We further held a high-level meeting with the Second Secretary of the U.S. Permanent Mission to the IAEA, Shannon E. Petry, to discuss AccApp’20 organizational issues.”

According to Cole, who has also been the General Chair for AccApp since 2015, the conference covers a broad range of topics including accelerator design and technology, accelerator applications in science, industry and medicine and nuclear data for accelerators.

Historically, the conference takes place every two or three years with the locations alternating between North America and Europe. The theme of the 2020 conference is The Expanding Universe of Accelerator Applications.  Each conference brings together 150-250 nuclear and accelerator experts from all over the world. 

The last AccApp was held in Quebec City, Quebec in August 2017 (see: ).

“For AccApp’20 medical applications of the nuclear sciences with accelerators will be another major topic at the conference, such as the production of medical isotopes for treating cancer,” said Cole.  “We will elevate the profile of nuclear techniques for environmental studies, such as for Harvey-recovery research, and, for the first time, we will have dedicated sessions on enhancing accelerator-based analytical techniques for forensic science.”

(See the February 2019 online article, Applications of Accelerators in Nuclear Science from the Viewpoint of Photon Activation Analysis from Prof. Cole in the American Physics Society Forum for International Physics. )