Sally Dawson, a Brookhaven physicist, is vice-chair of the EPP2010 and chair of the Executive Committee of the Division of Particles and Fields of the American Physical Society.

Particle physics addresses some of the most basic questions in science and the field is fortunate to be at a time when many of these questions can be answered by current and planned experiments. How to effectively use limited resources to maximize our science output has been the impetus for numerous studies. A new study, dubbed EPP2010, "Elementary Particle Physics in the 21st Century", has just begun its work.

Every ten years, the National Research Council of the National Academies conducts decadal studies of different areas of physics. The last study of particle physics was chaired by Bruce Winstein of Chicago and was completed in 1998. The new decadal study (EPP2010) will lay out the grand questions of particle physics. This committee is charged to "identify, articulate, and prioritize the scientific questions and opportunities that define elementary particle physics".

The new study is chaired by Harold Shapiro, the president emeritus of Princeton, and an economist and expert in bio-ethics. About half of the members of the EPP2010 committee are non-particle physicists. The committee and its charge are available online.

The first meeting of the EPP2010 committee was held in Washington, D.C. on Nov 30 and Dec 1 and focused on introducing the non-particle physicists on the committee to the questions of particle physics and on discussions of how to set scientific priorities in general. The meeting led off with a trio of physics talks by Joe Lykken (Particle Physics on the Edge), and Chris Quigg (Coming Revolutions in Particle Physics), of the Fermilab theory department, and by Persis Drell (Strategies for Discovery), of SLAC. All of the talks from this meeting are posted online.

Commented Chris Quigg, "We've had great fun sharing our excitement about the coming Revolutions in particle physics with the EPP2010 committee, and placing the particle physics revolutions within the advance of science as a whole. The committee's brief is broad and significant for our future: to weigh our aspirations large and small, and to recommend a coherent program for our field with a healthy measure of diversity and scale diversity. I look forward to their visits to Fermilab and the other great centers, where they will encounter not only ideas and dreams but also remarkable instruments and amazing people"

Joe Lykken discussed connections with the committee , "This is a special time in particle physics. We are attacking fundamental questions and provocative myseries. Most exciting for me, we are finding deep connections: between dark matter and supersymmetry, between neutrinos and quarks, between gravity and the other forces. This is the sign that we are on to something really big."

Daniella Bortolleto (Purdue) and Mike Tuts (Columbia) of the DPF executive committee organized a lively town meeting with presentations from many members of our community. These presentations are also on the web. The committee will next meet at SLAC on Jan 30 and Feb 1 and at Fermilab on May 16-17, 2005. There will be a Town Meeting at each of these meetings organized by the DPF. The Fermilab Town Meeting will be organized by Young-Kee Kim, Joe Lykken, and Marcela Carena.

The committee would like to hear from members of our community and comments can be sent to epp2010@nas.edu.