President’s Message/Message du Président 12 Spring / Printemps 2018 physicists, an electrical engineer and a radio astronomer from the universities. By 1968, the size of the committee had grown to 23 members from government, universities and industry. In 1971, the committee as- sumed its present form, and currently con- sists of the Committee Chair, a Past Chair, a Secretary and a Chair for each of the URSI Scientific Commissions. The Canadian National Committee for URSI was very active in 2017. We hosted the 32nd URSI General Assembly and Scientific Sym- posium in Montreal (19-26 August 2017) which attracted over 2,000 presentations from over 50 countries; Canadian participa- tion in URSI-GASS was second only to the U.S. In addition, Canada ran its first CNC- sponsored summer school (19 August 2017) which attracted some 60 students. Many international attendees commented that this was by far the best attended meeting since the 2003 meeting in Maastrich, Netherlands. The National Research Council of Canada is the adhering member for Canada in inter- national scientific and technical organiza- tions and was instrumental in the establish- ment of the Canadian National Committee for URSI. The Canadian National Commit- tee is supported jointly by NRC Govern- ment and International Relations and NRC Herzberg Astronomy and Astrophysics Re- search Centre. For more information about URSI Inter- national, please visit http://www.ursi.org/ . To learn about URSI Canada, please visit http://www.ursi.ca/. ■ held in New Delhi, India from 9-15 March 2019. The URSI Young Scientist Program provides travel grants to new members of the radio science community to attend these meetings as part of a cohort of other young scientists. URSI IN CANADA Canada joined URSI in 1952, somewhat later than its sister Commonwealth coun- tries Australia (1922) and New Zealand (1931). During the Second World War, radio research in Canada had grown rapidly under the direction of the National Research Council (NRC) of Canada’s Associate Com- mittee on Radio Research. By 1950, with many of NRC’s radio researchers no long- er involved in defence work, an Associate Committee on Radio Science was formed. In 1951, this became the Canadian Com- mittee for URSI under the chairmanship of D. W. R. McKinley, then Associate Director of the Radio and Electrical Engineering Div- ision of NRC. Canada became a member of URSI the following year. The Canadian National Committee (CNC) originally consisted of six senior scientists and engineers from government laborator- ies and departments concerned with radio science and its applications, and five radio Throughallthesedisparateactivities,Com- mission J serves to facilitate communica- tion and collaboration through its involve- ment in scientific and technical meetings. Commission J played a prominent part in the 2017 URSI General Assembly in Montreal, and promoted the participation as exhibitors of the international radio as- tronomy facilities in which Canada has an interest. In the Commission J scientif- ic sessions there were three invited lec- tures, fifteen contributed papers, and three poster presentations, all of which had Canadians in the author list. The upcoming ANTEM2018 meeting will be held in Waterloo in August 2018 with Canadian radio astronomy com- munity participation, Commission J also plans a presence at the upcoming meeting of the Canadian Astronomic- al Society in Victoria. ■ continued from page 11 About the Author Prof. David Michelson is Chair of the Canadian National Com- mittee of the International Union of Radio Science (2018- 2020). He has led the Radio Sci- ence Lab at the University of British Colum- bia, Dept. of Electrical and Computer Engin- eering since 2003. His current research focus- es on short-range/low-power wireless networks for smart utility, smart transportation and nat- ural resource applications, millimeter-wave channels and systems, and satellite networks for communications and remote sensing. Prof. Michelson serves as a member of the Board of Governors of the IEEE Communications Soci- ety (2017-2019) and the IEEE Vehicular Tech- nology Society, as a member of the Steering Committee of the NIST-sponsored 5G mm- Wave Channel Model Alliance., and as co-dir- ector of the AURORA Connected Vehicle Technology Testbed at UBC. MeerKAT array in South Africa MeerKAT array in South Africa Very Large Array (VLA) Dr. Lewis Knee is a Senior Research Officer and Team Leader of the Millimetre Instrumentation Group, Astronomy Technology, at the NRC Herzberg Astronomy and Astrophysics Research Centre. His scientific interests include radio and (sub)millimetre observational studies of star formation, young stellar objects, and the structure and evolution of the atomic and molecular components of molecular clouds and the general interstellar medium of the Galaxy. He is experienced in radio telescope operations and the commissioning of single dish and interferometric radio astronomy systems. His technical interests cover centimetre-wave and millimetre-wave radio astronomy instrumentation and systems. URSI COMMISSION J – RADIO ASTRONOMY Photo: SKA South Africa Photo: NRAO/AUI/NSF Photo: NRAO/AUI/NSF