Professor Ani Aprahamian has been elected to become the Chair of the IUPAP Commission on Nuclear Physics (C12). She replaces Professor Claes Faehlander of the University of Lund in Sweden. The commission that she chairs works closely with the OECD efforts globally.

The C12 Commission on Nuclear Physics was established by IUPAP in 1960 to promote the exchange of information and reviews among the member of the international nuclear physics community. Presently, fourteen physicists from different countries are members of C12. They represent many fields of nuclear physics including: a) nuclear properties and reactions; b) hadronic structure; c) nuclear astrophysics; d) quark matter physics; e) fundamental symmetries; f) nuclear instrumentation and technology; g) applications of nuclear physics. Nuclear physics spans distance scales from as small as quarks (~10-18 m) to as large as the universe (~1026 m). It is the key to understanding the stars and the production of the elements of the Periodic Table. A vast array of techniques and instruments, originally developed for nuclear physics, are used in medicine for imaging and treatment. Particle accelerators were invented by nuclear physicists as early as 1930 and quickly became the most important tool of nuclear research. Today there are more than 30,000 accelerators in the world, most of them being used in industry and medicine. Nuclear physics thus relates to many fields of science and it encompasses a huge range of applications. C12 is an expert resource to IUPAP on these matters and on education and training of the next generation.