In April, physicist Fred Dylla, 57, becomes executive director and CEO of the American Institute of Physics (AIP), which represents 10 professional societies and publishes a variety of journals. An administrator at the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility in Newport News, Virginia, Dylla will succeed the retiring Marc Brodsky.
Q: What is the biggest challenge facing AIP?
Our primary challenge is to fully embrace and push for the recommendations in Rising Above the Gathering Storm, the [National Academies] report that calls for increased funding for the sciences and science education.
Q: Will the AIP journals move toward open access?
Of course, we want the journals to be widely accessible. But the community also wants any publication to be high-quality, peer-reviewed, and archival, and those things have to be paid for. I think there is a business model emerging in which publication fees from the author and subscription fees from large institutions will pay for the value added.
Q: What can AIP do to increase diversity in physics?
There's no silver bullet. You have to address the entire pipeline from grade school to mentoring professionals.
