Skip to Main Content

Invited Address Committee for National Meetings

General Description

Principal Activities

The Committee selects hour speakers for the Joint Mathematics Meetings and the AMS-SIAM Joint Lecture at the SIAM Annual Meeting. This does not include Colloquium or Gibbs Lecturers or joint AMS-MAA speakers. The number of speakers is agreed in consultation with the Associate Secretary in charge of the meeting, who ordinarily participates in the selection. The invitations are issued in the name of the Committee by the Secretary.

Statement on Equity, Diversity and Inclusion
(as adopted by the April 2019 Council)

The American Mathematical Society is committed to promoting and facilitating equity, diversity and inclusion throughout the mathematical sciences. For its own long-term prosperity as well as that of the public at large, our discipline must connect with and appropriately incorporate all sectors of society. We reaffirm the pledge in the AMS Mission Statement to "advance the status of the profession of mathematics, encouraging and facilitating full participation of all individuals," and urge all members to conduct their professional activities with this goal in mind.

Other Activities

The Committee participates in the choice of organizers and subjects for special sessions but ordinarily leaves the administration of this part of the program to the Associate Secretary. With respect to special sessions, the Committee should be aware that there are special interest groups in SIAM, IEEE, ACM, and possibly other organizations which are sources of special sessions and which should be solicited. One such group is the IEE Information Theory Group. See EC/BT minutes of 1-2 May 1981, item 5.3.

The Committee generates symposia.

The Committee is available to assist the Associate Secretary, as by referring, in difficult cases concerning the acceptance of contributed papers.

The following action of the Executive Committee resolves certain points about jurisdiction over programs.

Committee Charges Concerning Programs. The EC approved the following two rules, which will be incorporated in the charges to the relevant committees.

Each Society Committee, particularly the Science Policy Committee and the Committee on Employment and Education Policy, is responsible for the selection of those elements of the program, such as lectures and panel discussions, which fall within Society jurisdiction and within its charge. In the event of possible overcrowding of the portion of the program within the responsibility of the Society, the resolution of conflicts rests with the Program Committee (or with the cognizant Committee to Select Hour Speakers).

These two items supplement existing charges to the Program Committee for the scientific content and to the Joint Meetings Committee for mechanics of joint meetings. The two new elements had the approval of the relevant committees and the ABC.

Miscellaneous Information

The business of this committee can be done by email or videoconference.

The following passage is extracted from the report of the Committee on Committees in recommending the establishment of the Program Committee:

Fifty minute talks should emphasize very high level exposition and should be designed for fully trained mathematicians. The emphasis in choosing speakers should be on the quality of talk, even though this may result in more repetition of speakers than is now the practice. Nevertheless, the search for good young speakers should be pursued. The Program Committee should make systematic efforts to gather suggestions for speakers. They should consider the possibility of having a form printed in the Notices to be used by members to make suggestions.

Note to the Chair

For the purpose of archiving the committee activities, the Secretary maintains a central file system for archiving committee records. Committee Chairs are asked to submit committee records on yearly basis. Chairs can submit material at their discretion, and some materials that they may wish to provide are meeting minutes, agenda, and emails. Confidential material should be noted, so that it can be handled in a confidential manner.

Authorization

Past Members

A list of current and past members is available here:
http://www.ams.org/about-us/governance/committees/program-past.html