Dear friends,

From time to time, I send around the news of the department
so far as I know it.  One of the nice outcomes is that people
chime in with things I did not know and thus we can get that news
to all as well.  So, please keep me informed about developments,
and of course send corrections if I mis-speak.

Some of the following items were included in the alumni newsletter
that some of us got, or were noted in the chair's state of the
department colloquium, but perhaps bear brief reprise.

1.  Our graduate student alumnus (1976), Michael Anastasio, was
    appointed as Director at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
    (in June of this year).

2.  Chris Jacobsen is one of six Stony Brook principal investigators
    for the $5.7M Center for Environmental Molecular Sciences,
    awarded by the NSF.  The Center brings together faculty from
    Geosciences, Chemistry, Marine Sciences and Physics at Stony
    Brook, with partners at BNL, Penn State and Temple University.
    The scientific theme of the Center will be the study of the
    fundamental molecular basis for sequestration and
    remobilization of hazardous contaminants in soils and
    near-surface geomaterials, both natural and engineered.  These
    studies will be carried out in large part using x-ray absorption
    spectroscopy and microprobe experiments at the National
    Synchrotron Light Source at Brookhaven National Laboratory.

3.  Michael Feser, Ph.D. in 2002, won an award for best PhD in
    x-ray microscopy within the last three years.  Michael is now a
    postdoc at BNL.  This means that Stony Brook has won 2 of 3 of
    these awards (Jianwei Miao was co-winner in 1999, the first year
    of the award).

4.  The Conference on Neutrinos and Implications for Physics Beyond
    the Standard Model will be held at Stony Brook, Oct. 11 -- 13.
    Robert Shrock is the primary organizer.

5.  George Sterman was co-winner, with Al Mueller of Columbia, of
    the American Physical Society J.J. Sakurai prize.  The citation
    is:
      "For developing concepts and techniques in QCD, such as infrared
       safety and factorization in hard processes, which permitted
       precise quantitative predictions and experimental tests,
       and thereby helped to establish QCD as the theory of the
       strong interactions."

6.  Our former colleague, Homer Neal (also provost at Stony Brook
    for some years) was given the Edward Bouchet Award of the APS
    for 2003.

7.  Bob McGrath, our current provost, received the University of
    Iowa Distinguished Alumni award.

8. We are sad that Thomas Schaefer has told us that he will leave
    Stony Brook to take a faculty position at North Carolina State
    in spring 2003; and that Luis Orozco will move to Maryland in
    summer 2003.  We wish both the best in their new settings!

9.  As members of the department go around the world giving
    colloquiua and seminars this year, I urge all to take some time
    to talk with undergraduate majors of other departments to
    outline the opportunities they would find in our graduate program.

10. I remind us all that the colloquia on Tuesday afternoon give us
    the best opportunity available to get insight into recent ideas
    and advances in the broad range of astronomy, physics and
    sometimes other disciplines.  I urge ALL faculty and students to
    take advantage of this great series of talks.  Who knows, what
    you hear there may spark your next good idea!