Highlights

1. Board on Physics and Astronomy (BPA) Solid State Sciences Committee (SSSC) Donald C. Shapero, DMR 0500017 and DMR 0520671 • Highlights • The SSSC’s MRSEC Impact Assessment Committee (chaired by Matthew Tirrell, UCSB) released its final report in June 2007, The National Science Foundation’s Materials Research Science and Engineering Centers Program: Looking Back, Moving Forward, assessing the performance and impact of these centers and recommending future directions and roles for the program. The committee recommended a restructuring of the MRSEC program to allow more efficient use and leveraging of resources. • The decadal survey of condensed-matter and materials physics (CMMP 2010) was chaired by Mildred Dresselhaus, MIT, and William Spencer, SEMATECH, retired. The committee’s final report was released in June 2007: Condensed-Matter and Materials Physics: The Science of the World Around Us. The report discussed 6 science challenges, connections to society, changes in the industrial laboratories, and tools for advancing research. Recommendations followed in all these areas. • Two additional policy studies related to materials research are currently under way under the auspices of the BPA and SSSC: • Review of the field of biomolecular materials and processes (final report to be released fall 2007) • Review of the field of materials synthesis and crystal growth (final report to be released summer 2008)

2. Board on Physics and Astronomy (BPA) Solid State Sciences Committee (SSSC) Donald C. Shapero, DMR 0500017 and DMR 0520671 • Education & Outreach • Activities of the Solid State Sciences Committee engage the broader research community and help to articulate strategies for the future of the field. Outreach to and discussion with the science community is an important aspect of the SSSC’s work: • New Materials Synthesis and Crystal Growth (MSAC) • The MSAC committee held three town meetings this year at the following professional society meetings: American Physical Society March Meeting in Denver, Materials Research Society spring meeting in San Francisco, and 15th International Conference on Crystal Growth in Salt Lake City. These town meetings were held for the community to provide input to the committee on both science challenges for the future and broader issues for the field. • Solid State Sciences Committee (SSSC) • At the spring and fall meeting of the SSSC, members of the science community were invited to discuss challenges and opportunities in the areas of computational physics and the future of electronics. Distinguished researchers presented the cutting edge research in these fields and held subsequent discussion on where the fields are going. The SSSC also has one invited science talk per meeting to hear about new and emerging areas of research. • Reports prepared under the auspices of the BPA and SSSC are broadly disseminated to the research community, congressional staff, federal agency representatives, and the administration. They are used to prepare national policy and program objectives at the federal, state, and local levels.