As part of the APS Strategic Plan: 2019, the APS Innovation Fund was created, which encourages collaborative partnerships among APS members, APS Units and Committees, and APS staff to develop new approaches to advancing the interests of the physics community.

While the COVID-19 pandemic has had a profound impact on our community, it is also the case, as stated by the APS President and CEO, that the pandemic presents "an existential challenge, which can accelerate positive change, spur innovation, and make us stronger and more resilient." To facilitate these activities and respond to unique needs of the community as a result of the pandemic, APS reopened the Innovation Fund for a condensed cycle to fund projects that address critical needs resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Special COVID-19 Innovation Fund Cycle (IF-COVID19)  Two novel projects align with the APS mission “to advance and diffuse the knowledge of physics for the benefit of humanity, promote physics, and service the broader physics community”, and one was awarded to Christopher Porter of the Department of Physics:

Departmental Admissions Practices that Maintain Excellence and Diversity in the Face of COVID-19
Project Leads: Geoff Potvin, Christopher Porter, Galen Pickett
This project will generate critical knowledge to support Physics Departments to effectively adapt their graduate admissions in 2021 and beyond to the emerging constraints imposed by COVID-19 and associated uncertainty (travel restrictions, safety/health concerns, disrupted instructional modalities, etc). It will particularly focus on practices in graduate admissions and student on-boarding that support continuing efforts to promote diversity, cohort size, and student success through these challenges.