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If you are interested in applying for this position, please send an email indicating your interest along with a cover letter detailing your relevant experience and a resume or CV to sps@aip.org, with the subject line: Editor application. Applications will be reviewed beginning September 1, 2012.

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The Society of Physics Students is seeking an editor for its peer-reviewed, online journal. Duties include leading SPS staff to produce high-quality articles and related content for the Journal of Undergraduate Research in Physics (JURP) website, appropriate for undergraduate physics majors. The Editor will meet with the staff approximately monthly to review articles in process, determine schedules and strategies for authors and reviewers, and make final decisions on manuscripts. The Editor will work with the SPS Director and JURP Assistant Editor, and the JURP Advisory Board to address the review process, deadlines, and the publishing process.

A stipend will be provided to the editor and will be reviewed annually (effort is estimated to average 4-5 hours per week).

Brief Description of Job Duties

1. Maintain high quality editorial and graphical standards for The Journal of Undergraduate Research in Physics (JURP).
2. Develop new JURP reviewers and their mentors and maintenance of established JURP reviewers and their mentors.
3. Oversee editorial production schedule, journal operations, outreach and development, working with SPS Director, Assistant Editor, JURP Editorial Board, and staff.

Qualifications

• PhD in physics or closely related field
• Extensive familiarity with undergraduate physics community
• Knowledge of physics faculty in a variety of fields, willing to guide undergraduates in reviewing articles
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills
• Highly computer literate, knowledge of/experience with internet-based scientific communication

The Journal of Undergraduate Research in Physics (JURP) is a peer-reviewed, online journal of the Society of Physics Students and Sigma Pi Sigma, the physics honor society, established in 1982. In 2002, JURP became an online journal available at www.jurp.org, and is now solely produced online. JURP is devoted to archiving research conducted by undergraduate students in physics and its related fields, and is a vehicle for the exchange of ideas and information by undergraduate students. In order to qualify for publication in JURP, authors must currently be undergraduates or have completed the research in their undergraduate career.

The Society of Physics Students (SPS) is the professional society for physics students and their mentors, and operates under the auspices of the American Institute of Physics (AIP). SPS is the professional society for physics students and their mentors. With over 4000 members in over 800 chapters on college campuses, SPS provides opportunities for physics students across the nation, including research awards, outreach programs, scholarships, and travel awards. The SPS website provides information and applications for these opportunities, as well as other physics contacts, society news, hot science, physics career information, and the lighter side of physics. SPS membership is $24 per year and members receive access to Physics Today magazine monthly and The SPS Observer quarterly; undergraduate members have the opportunity to become part of one of 10 other physics professional societies through the joint membership program, as well. SPS is also instrumental in helping to maintain the national digital library for physics students (www.the-nucleus.org), which houses a clearinghouse for physics scholarships and summer research opportunities, among other things. Approximately 500 of the 700 SPS chapters also have a Sigma Pi Sigma chapter on campus (see below).

Sigma Pi Sigma is the physics honor society, with chapters at most SPS institutions that grant a traditional physics bachelor's degree. Members, usually upper level undergraduates but at times, graduate students, alumni, and faculty, are also elected into Sigma Pi Sigma based on academic record.  The typical member of Sigma Pi Sigma is a 'hidden physicist', that is, not an academic physics researcher, but rather, working throughout society as an engineer, a managers, a scientist, an educator, etc. Most of the roughly 40,000 members receive Radiations, the society's official publication, twice per year. Sigma Pi Sigma members pay one-time dues upon their reception into the society, and many of them choose to support SPS programs, scholarships, and awards through annual donations made to the society. The society hosts a Congress every four years; the most recent Congress was held at FermiLab, and the 2012 Congress will be held in Orlando on November 8-10, and will include tours of the Kennedy Space Center. Details about how an SPS chapter can be expanded to include a Sigma Pi Sigma chapter are included in the SPS/Sigma Pi Sigma Information Handbook sent out the SPS chapter advisors each year, or by contacting the national office at sps@aip.org.

Both organizations are housed within, and supported by, the American Institute of Physics (AIP), within the Education Division, as a service to physics students and to the 10 member societies of AIP. AIP is a 501(c)(3) membership corporation chartered in New York State in 1931 for the purpose of promoting the advancement and diffusion of the knowledge of physics and its application to human welfare. The American Institute of Physics is an Affirmative Action and Equal Opportunity Employer.