Welcome to the late 2019 FECS newsletter. As my term as chair comes to an end in a few months, I can say the forum has had a very successful year, growing in activities and membership.

We have just held the 2019 elections after a very large and well-qualified list of candidates were put forward. I wish them all the best of luck, and I am sure those who were chosen will enjoy their time on the executive. For those who were not selected, do not be discouraged; apply again. In fact, we are trying to increase the number of executives of the FECS so that more can actively participate and we can do more for our members.

This year, we had very well-attended sessions at both the March and April annual meetings. In no small part due to the efforts of our past chair, Marilena Longobardi, the FECS membership has also blossomed. With these two fantastic achievements, we petitioned the APS for an extra March session, and I am happy to say we will have the equivalent of two sessions from March 2020 onward.

In March 2020, we will hold the first of, I hope, many postdoctoral poster prizes. We recognize that the postdoctoral period in the academic track is very stressful and critical to one’s eventual success. In an attempt to address both these issues, FECS has arranged a poster session so that you can present more of your work at the March meeting, and some lucky winners will also go away with a well-deserved certificate and prize money. We will monitor this event closely, and we hope to announce a similar event for the April Meeting participants in the near future.

In January 2019, the American Physical Society announced the creation of the APS Innovation Fund, which encourages collaborative partnerships among APS members, APS Units and Committees, and APS staff to develop new approaches to advancing the interests of the physics community. These grants should align with the APS Strategic Plan, advance the interests of the physics community, be innovative, and have a measurable output within two years. Along with the other units, individuals, and the APS Office of Education and Diversity, we were successful in getting a grant entitled “APS Inclusion, Diversity, and Equity Alliance (APS-IDEA)”. Stay tuned for information on activities that result from this grant.

At FECS, we continuously promote and defend the issues important to young scientists. Through programs, travel grants, support, and resources, we hope our members and the APS as a whole recognize this. We welcome suggestions for other activities that will benefit early-career scientists, topics to highlight at our annual meetings, and programs to support or start. We welcome any and all members of the APS to join the Forum for Early Career Scientists, and we believe that we can all learn from each other. In this friendly environment, we can focus on the future leaders of science, helping them to develop their scientific and leadership skills. Finally, I wish Ben Ueland an excellent 2020 as chair of this unit and want to let him know that I will be there to support him as past-chair in all that he does.