OSA 2011 Candidate Profiles and Statements
OSA 2011 Candidate Profiles and Statements
Candidates for Vice President
Candidates for Director at Large
OSA 2011 Vice President Candidates (1 will be elected)
Philip H. Bucksbaum
Profile
Phil Bucksbaum holds the Marguerite Blake Wilbur Chair in Natural Science at Stanford University. His research is in the areas of ultrafast, short wavelength, and high field laser-matter interactions.
Bucksbaum has been a member of the OSA since the early 1980’s. He has served the Society in several capacities: as QELS Program Co-chair (1997) and General Co-chair (1999); Chair of the Short Wavelength Topical Meeting (1992); frequent member of conference program committees; and as a member of the OSA Board of Directors (2006–2008).
Bucksbaum received his A.B. degree in Physics from Harvard University in 1975, and his Ph.D. in Physics from the University of California at Berkeley in 1980. Following a postdoctoral year at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, he joined the staff of Bell Telephone Laboratories in New Jersey, first as a postdoc at Holmdel, and later as a member of the technical staff at Murray Hill. He was appointed Professor of Physics at the University of Michigan in 1990, where he became the Otto Laporte Collegiate Professor in 1998 and the Peter Franken University Professor in 2005. At Michigan, Bucksbaum also was the Associate Director for Science at the Center for Ultrafast Optical Science, and the Director of the FOCUS Center, a National Science Foundation Physics Frontier Center.
In 2006, Bucksbaum moved to the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and Stanford University, and in 2009, he became the Marguerite Blake Wilbur Professor in Natural Science. He has joint appointments in the Physics Department, the Applied Physics Department, and the SLAC Photon Sciences Department, and he served as Department Chair of Photon Science (2007–2010). He is the Director of the Stanford PULSE Institute for Ultrafast Science, and he also directs the Chemical Sciences Research Division at SLAC.
Bucksbaum has more than 200 publications. He has contributed to several areas of atomic physics and ultrafast science, including strong-field laser-atom interactions, Rydberg wave packets, ultrafast quantum control, and ultrafast X-ray physics. Most recently, he has helped to pioneer ultrafast research at X-ray free electron lasers. He is the founding and current editor of the AIP Virtual Journal of Ultrafast Science, and he has also served as a Laser Sciences Divisional Associate Editor for Physical Review Letters. He has been elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society as well as the OSA, and he was elected in 2004 to the National Academy of Sciences. Other honors include Guggenheim and Miller Fellowships, and distinguished teaching and research awards.
Philip H. Bucksbaum Statement
The Optical Society is the world’s leading professional organization devoted to optics and photonics. Our members include educators, students, scientists, and engineers in all areas of optical science and technology, who use our international meetings, publications, local chapters and student groups to exchange ideas and experiences, and to foster advances that cut across the traditional disciplines in industry and academia. Now, as the laser enters its second half-century, we have new areas that we can serve in biomedicine, information technology, and X-ray science.
I am honored to be a candidate for the presidential leadership line of OSA. This is an opportunity for me to give something back to an organization that has done more than any other to promote optics and laser science. Here are some of the areas where I believe the OSA leadership should concentrate its efforts in the next few years.
The Society’s journals and its meetings are core activities. Their continued strength must be our highest priority. OSA’s topical meetings are particularly valuable to foster emerging fields in optical science. The cost of small meetings continues to rise, but they build the new communities and attract new members that will provide our future strength. OSA’s larger meetings are places where industry and academia come together. The technical exhibits, tutorials, and general sessions are all essential tools for our profession that are highly valued by meeting attendees.
OSA journals have set the standard for optics research for nearly a century. As we face new challenges brought on by changing information technology, we must continue to find ways to serve our community and the academic world with the finest peer-reviewed journals. The Society’s journals have a history of innovation without compromising quality or impact, and they must continue to keep pace with new information tools.
Professional societies also have a responsibility to represent their members on the national and international stage. OSA has high visibility, and we can use this to reach government and the public with our message about the importance of optics research and technology in modern society. We should also sharpen OSA’s role in advocating strong science funding to encourage advances that are driven by science.
Outreach to pre-college students is particularly important, especially for groups that have not been attracted to the physical sciences in the past. Optics kits and other learning aids can be a great way to get a new generation excited about science and to encourage them to think about careers in technical fields. OSA has taken the lead in several of these activities, and I would like to strengthen this part of OSA’s activities.
The future of OSA depends most of all on our members. The Board of Directors, OSA staff, and the presidential leadership must work together effectively to provide the best possible organization for you. I would consider it a privilege to serve you as a leader of OSA.
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Alexander Gaeta
Profile
Alex Gaeta received his B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. degrees, all in Optics, from the University of Rochester. He remained at the University of Rochester for two years as a postdoctoral research associate. In 1992, he joined the faculty at the School of Applied and Engineering Physics at Cornell University, where he is currently a Professor and the Director for the Center for Nanoscale Systems. In 2009 he also co-founded PicoLuz, LLC, a company devoted to commercializing novel silicon nanophotonics technologies. He has published over 150 papers in areas that include integrated nonlinear optical devices, nanophotonics, nonlinear propagation of ultrashort laser pulses, the development and application of photonic crystal fibers, and quantum effects via nonlinear optical processes. He received Young Investigator Awards from the Office of Naval Research in 1993, and from the Army Research Office in 1995. He has participated in the organization of numerous meetings, including serving as Chair of the 2003 OSA Annual Meeting, Chair of the QELS Conference, and Chair of the Nonlinear Optics Topical Meeting. He has served as Chair of the OSA Executive Committee of the Science and Engineering Council, Chair of the OSA Division of Quantum Electronics, and Member-at-Large of the Executive Committee of the APS Division of Laser Science. He also served on the OSA Board of Directors as a Director at Large (2008-2010). He is a Fellow of OSA and the APS.
Alexander Gaeta Statement
OSA has been the leading organization for promoting, disseminating and archiving knowledge in optics and photonics. This standing will be maintained in the foreseeable future as long as the Society continues to nurture strong participation from its volunteers and the superb OSA staff, and to enhance its strong financial position. I believe OSA can leverage these assets not only to continue its current portfolio of services, but also to explore new ways of executing its mission by adopting new publishing paradigms and globalizing its membership.
OSA has steadily expanded its publications titles into new areas (e.g., Biomedical Optics Express, Optical Materials Express) while embracing the open-access model, and it continues to offer the overall highest quality journals covering almost all areas of optics. It has made remarkable efforts to reduce time to publication in all its journals, and finding creative ways of shortening this time needs to be continued. Two directions in the publications area that I believe should be pursued are: 1) a high-profile flagship journal that covers all areas of optics and includes papers with the highest potential impact, and 2) a more synergistic interaction between publications and meetings that takes advantage of the high quality in both these areas of research dissemination and that could lead to a very rapid form of publishing the latest high-impact research.
The continued increase in the number of optics and photonics meetings offered by all optics-related societies has created challenges for OSA to develop a model for offering meetings that are cost-efficient and continue to attract attendees. The recent establishment of the Optics and Photonics Congresses represents a positive step in maintaining the vitality of OSA topical meetings. Nevertheless, OSA needs to find new ways nurture and improve the larger conferences and to develop successful technical exhibits that strengthen connections with industrial members/partners and provide additional sources of revenue. In particular, I believe better coordination between the three CLEO conferences should be established to produce a core of large conferences that attracts the highest quality research papers and attendees from across the globe. These efforts will require increased cooperation with the other optics/photonics societies.
Over the past few years, OSA has been extremely successful in expanding the number of Student Chapters around the world. This provides a fertile network for students to interact with each other and to engage in OSA activities, planting the seeds for future leaders in optics, both in their home countries and in the society. Significant investment in these efforts should continue, including sponsoring student-oriented events such as the IONS conferences and providing incentives and support for students to participate in major conferences and topical meetings.
Recently, OSA has devoted significant efforts to achieving greater international representation in governance, publications and meetings. I believe these efforts must be continued and intensified to reflect the increasingly international membership demographics, journal submissions, and conference attendance. This must entail increasing the number of Optics and Photonics Congresses at non-U.S. locations.
I have been an OSA member for more than 25 years, and I am grateful for the opportunities I have had to participate in OSA conference organization and OSA leadership efforts such as the Science and Engineering Council and the Board of Directors. I would welcome the opportunity to continue to serve OSA’s members and to promote all of its activities.
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OSA 2011 Candidates for Director at Large (3 will be elected)
James D. Kafka
Profile
Jim Kafka attended the Institute of Optics at the University of Rochester, where he obtained a B.S. in Optics in 1977 and a Ph.D. in Optics in 1983, studying with Conger Gabel and Gerard Mourou. Of his studies, Kafka says, “In retrospect, it was a fabulous time to be at the Institute and the Laboratory for Laser Energetics. The people I met have become lifelong friends and colleagues.” In 1983, he started as a Senior Scientist at Spectra-Physics Lasers, where he has held a series of positions with increasing responsibility; he is currently the Advanced Research and Development Director. He designed several of the company’s most significant products, including the Tsunami, the first commercial ultrafast Ti:sapphire laser (1990), and the Millennia X, the first commercial 10 W solid-state green laser (1997). For this work, he was recognized as a Spectra-Physics Fellow in 1987. He also received the Thermo Electron Corporate Award for Technical Innovation in 2002 and the first Newport Corporation Strategic Patent Award in 2007 for his patent of the first diode-pumped double-clad fiber laser. Kafka has over 37 United States patents and multiple foreign equivalents. He has more than 30 publications in refereed journals and has made more than 35 presentations at CLEO, OSA topical meetings, SPIE conferences, and at major universities.
Kafka has served the professional community as the Ultrafast Topical Editor for JOSA B (1994-1995), Lasers Technical Group Chair (1995-1997), and on a dozen conference organizing committees. He has served as the CLEO program chair (1999), CLEO general chair (2001) and on the CLEO steering committee (1997–2001). He has just completed a three-year sequence as the Program and General Chair of the highly-regarded Advanced Solid-State Photonics topical meeting. One of his proudest achievements has been serving as a Distinguished Traveling Lecturer for the APS Division of Laser Science from 1999 to the present. Kafka was named an OSA Fellow in 2005.
James D. Kafka Statement
OSA has been my professional home since I was an undergraduate at the University of Rochester. My time at the U of R and my participation with OSA have taught me the importance of communicating with others, both sharing the work that I am passionate about and, more importantly, having people around me to supply guidance and inspiration to stimulate my growth.
As I moved into industry, I needed to be more guarded about when I could share information, but I think that only gave me a heightened appreciation for all the channels the OSA presents, from the formal ones of publishing in journals to the networking opportunities that are such a valuable part of OSA conferences. I think the challenge for the OSA Board of Directors is to provide all of our members, at whatever point in their careers and wherever they are in the world, with the highest quality opportunities to be recognized for their contributions, and, more importantly, to benefit from each other’s knowledge and experience. Only in this way can we help advance the field of optics as effectively as possible.
Given the diversity of our members, communication and inclusiveness are the issues I want to champion. Of course, once we are in a leadership position we always think we are being inclusive, but in fact we may have become further insulated from the needs of the general membership! Wandering the packed halls of Photonics West the last few years, I have concluded that inclusiveness is one of the keys to success and that there are techniques we should learn from others to improve our offerings. If elected, I promise to reinforce and enlarge the channels of communication available to all of our membership, and to do so with a personal and efficient touch.
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Byoung Yoon Kim
Profile
Byoung Yoon Kim is a professor in the Department of Physics at KAIST (Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology), where he works in the field of fiber optics.
Kim received his B. S. degree from Seoul National University in 1977, and an M. S. degree from KAIST in 1979, both in Physics. He received a Ph.D. in Applied Physics from Stanford University in 1985. From 1979 to 1982, he was a member of the research staff at the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST), Seoul, where he worked on fabrication and characterization of optical fibers. From 1985 to 1989, he worked at Ginzton Laboratory, Stanford University, as a Research Associate, and later, as Acting Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering. In 1990, he joined the Department of Physics at KAIST in Daejeon, Korea, where he served as chairman of the department (1995-1997). He was also a Visiting Professor in the EE Department at Stanford University (1990-2000). He was chairman and CEO of Novera Optics Inc. (2000-2008), which he founded. His research interests have been with fiber-optic devices for sensors and communications, including gyroscopes, few-mode fiber components, lasers and amplifiers, acousto-optic modulators, and fiber gratings. He has more than 250 journal and conference publications, three book chapters and approximately 50 patents, and he has produced more than 40 Ph.D.’s from Stanford and KAIST.
Two successful start-up companies have been founded based on research results from his laboratory at KAIST. In 1995, he founded FiberPro, Inc., which develops and manufactures fiber-based components and instruments for test and measurement. In 1999, he founded Novera Optics, Inc. in the Silicon Valley to commercialize dynamic optical networking elements and optical access network subsystems. The company was acquired by LG-Ericsson in 2008.
Kim’s relationship with OSA began 30 years ago when he was a young researcher. Since then, he has been involved with OSA in several different functions, including as a topical editor for Optics Letters (1997-1999), and as a committee member for OSA-sponsored conferences such as OFC, CLEO and CLEO-Pacific Rim. He has also held many positions in academic societies collaborating with OSA, serving as an elected member of Board of Governors of IEEE LEOS (2002-2004); vice president of the International Commission for Optics (ICO) (2002-2008), and, more recently, as President of the Optical Society of Korea (2010).
In addition, Kim has served as General Chair of the 13th Optical Fiber Sensors (OFS) conference; as a member of the OFS International Steering Committee; as a member of Advisory Board of the Micro-Optics Conference (MOC); as General Secretary for the 17th General Congress of ICO; as a member of the Editorial Board for Measurement Science and Technology and for the International Journal of Optoelectronics, and as a guest editor for IEICE Transactions on Electronics.
Kim is a member of the Korean Academy of Science and Technology and a Fellow of OSA, IEEE, the Optical Society of Korea, the Institute of Physics (UK), and the Korean Physical Society.
Byoung Yoon Kim Statement
As the leading professional society in the field of optics, OSA has been providing forums for dissemination of the most exciting discoveries through high quality journals, conferences and various other activities. Through these activities, OSA plays a critical role in helping its members advance their professional careers and also in nurturing future leaders in optics.
My own career of more than 30 years in research, education and the industrial application of optics technology certainly has benefited a great deal from OSA functions. OSA journals have been the major sources of new information and also the main channel to communicate my findings to the relevant community. I met many people at OSA conferences that led to a worldwide network of collaborators and friends. I also had opportunities to participate in OSA functions and get a glimpse of how a successful professional society manages its various activities. These valuable experiences helped me better serve other communities. It would be a great honor if I can now serve OSA to help its members around the world get such benefits that I was lucky to have received during my career.
In recent years, we have witnessed fundamental changes in the ways people exchange information at much higher speed and magnitude, using the rapidly-growing Internet availability. This is a global phenomenon and will only accelerate with time. The ability to adapt to the changing environment is essential for the continuing success of professional societies like OSA. I was happy to see that OSA recognized the importance of online journals and acted quickly to launch an open-access journal, Optics Express, which is hugely successful. I believe efforts along this line should continue to better position OSA for the future.
There are equally important areas where I feel further efforts are needed to respond to the changing environment, although OSA has been working on them. One is to expand international collaborations, as an increasingly significant percentage of the OSA membership and number of contributions to OSA journals and conferences are from outside the United States. This trend will continue with the rapid economic development of emerging regions and the deep penetration of Internet infrastructures. It is therefore important for OSA to strengthen its global presence through collaboration with professional societies in other countries. Having spent my professional career in both North America and Asia, I feel I would be able to help the process.
OSA should also continue to strengthen its support of the optics industry by providing efficient connections between academic research and industrial innovations. The healthy growth of the optics industry is vital to the continuing success of OSA, as we witnessed during the communications industry downturn a decade ago. In addition to optical communications, rapidly growing fields such as bioengineering and green energy will be important industrial areas for optics. Establishing more platforms for academia and industry to share information would be a very useful service that OSA could provide to its members. I hope to contribute to this goal using my experience in both academic research and the commercialization of technologies.
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Carlos Lopez-Mariscal
Profile
Carlos Lopez-Mariscal obtained his Ph.D. degree from Tecnologico de Monterrey, Mexico, in 2006. He performed research work towards his doctoral studies in optical trapping at the Photonics and Mathematical Optics Group and as a visiting student at the University of St Andrews in Scotland.
In 2007, he joined the Atomic Physics Division of the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Maryland, U.S., as a postdoctoral researcher. There, he designed microfluidic devices with integrated holographic optical traps for the controlled production and manipulation of single-molecule containers and developed advanced algorithms for laser beam shaping. He has held visiting positions at the University of Ljubljana in Slovenia and more recently, at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia.
Dr. Lopez-Mariscal currently serves as a member of the OSA Publications Council and as co-chair of the OSA’s Optical Trapping Applications topical meeting. He is a member of the OPN Editorial Advisory Committee (2009-2011) and the Member and Education Services Council (MES) (2009-2011). He also serves as chair of the Optics in Medicine and Biology subcommittee for Frontiers in Optics. Lopez-Mariscal has also enjoyed contributing to the OSA Foundation’s Galileoscope Challenge program as a presenter and instructor.
Lopez-Mariscal has been an invited speaker at international conferences on numerous occasions, and he has also been an avid supporter of OSA’s Traveling Lecturer program. As a student and a young professional, he drove the formation of several OSA Student Chapters overseas, including the first Student Chapters in Mexico and South Africa. His volunteer activities include a key role in global development projects for the expansion of optics outreach in Latin America.
Since 2010, Lopez-Mariscal has been a full-time researcher in the Chemistry Division of the United States Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, DC, where he contributes to the development of the next generation of airborne threat detectors and analyzers.
Carlos Lopez-Mariscal Statement
There has never been a more exciting time to be a professional in the optical sciences than now. Scientific discovery and technological development are moving ahead at an unprecedented pace, providing opportunities in new, unexplored fields of study to a generation of energetic scientists and engineers worldwide. In this ever-changing environment, research often takes place across the boundaries of scientific disciplines and beyond regional borders. With a vast array of digital resources and electronic tools for instant communications available, international collaboration has become a key instrument for continued leadership in research.
Through challenging times, the OSA has proven to be a resilient society, committed to providing high-quality services to its membership base while striving to remain the leading scientific society through innovation and thoughtful strategic development. OSA faces several challenges in the near future if it is to maintain its leadership and continue its trend-setting evolution. It must continue to build on its core strengths and, at the same time, continue improving for the benefit of its members.
With the growth of electronic publishing, the success of OSA’s journals is a key component to the continued well-being of the Society. In order to capitalize on the success of the open-access publication model of Optics Express -- and now Biomedical Optics Express and Optical Materials Express -- and with ever shorter time to publication, we must ensure that the traditional high quality of OSA’s publications remains a trademark. This demands the involvement of a large portion of the member base in the roles of reviewers and editors, while making publication costs reasonably affordable to authors -- not a simple task.
Another important aspect of OSA’s well-being is its ability to attract and maintain robust statistics with regard to conferences attendees. Promising emerging fields of research should be identified and their feasibility as topics of interest for meetings studied. If suitable, these topics can be promoted into gatherings that appeal to groups with shared interests, much like the existing Life Sciences Congress, a proven successful model.
OSA is a thriving society due largely to the committed efforts of its members. Some of the most enthusiastic demographic member groups are student members and young professionals – professionals under the age of 40. Student member numbers have enjoyed record growth in the past six years. By supporting student-driven projects such as IONs, IONs North America and IONs Koala, to name a few, OSA develops widespread awareness of the Society’s goals in diverse groups of young individuals across continents who are already motivated leaders in their communities. Young professionals, in turn, represent the future of the Society. OSA must nurture their initiatives and efforts into solid, sustainable projects that will eventually benefit the Society at large. Sponsoring these initiatives also constitutes an effective way to promote further diversity and the consequential integration of minority groups into OSA’s membership.
Finally, a conscious society requires that its more successful members give back to the underserved. It is imperative that the efforts of the OSA Foundation continue growing to have an even deeper positive impact and reach more with less. Taking “Hands-On Optics” to the classrooms of those who otherwise would never be exposed to it is a responsibility of the Society and its individual members that will pay off in the long term.
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Giovanni Volpe
Profile
Giovanni Volpe is currently employed as a postdoctoral researcher at the Max Planck Institut für Intelligente Systeme in Stuttgart, Germany. He received his M.Sc in Telecommunication Engineering from Padova University, Italy, in 2004 and his Ph.D. in applied physics from The Institute of Photonic Sciences (ICFO), Barcelona, Spain, in 2008. Since 2004, Volpe has authored over 25 papers in leading peer-reviewed journals with over 300 citations; furthermore, he has been invited to speak at international conferences on numerous occasions. Volpe was awarded the ICFO Ph.D. Thesis Award (2009), the Visionary Thinker Award (2008), and was a finalist for the OSA Leadership Award/New Focus-Bookham Prize (2007).
Volpe has been involved in OSA activities since early in his career and is now a proud member of the OSA Young Professionals. In 2004, he founded the ICFO-OSA Student Chapter, the first OSA Student Chapter in Southern Europe; he was elected President three times between 2004 and 2007. Volpe succeeded in making the Chapter grow into a recognized and established organization with about 30 members and a strong structure. Some of the outreach programs developed in this time (in particular, “El Día de la Luz”/“The Day of Light”) are still in operation and have served as an example to other Student Chapters. For these efforts, Volpe and his team were awarded the 2006 Student Chapter Excellence Award.
Volpe is one of the founders of IONS–The International OSA Network of Students. In January 2007, he co-organized the inaugural IONS conference at ICFO, establishing the first ties between participating Student Chapters. This project is a comprehensive initiative, aimed at establishing and strengthening professional and personal ties among OSA’s young researchers, and it constitutes a network that connects OSA student members from all over the world through periodic conferences. The 9th IONS European conference was celebrated in Salamanca, Spain, in April 2011; over 100 young researchers from over 15 European and American Student Chapters attended. The initial success of the biannual European conference has permitted IONS to be exported to the United States, Australia, Asia, and South America.
In 2008, Volpe initiated Optics & Photonics Focus, an independent magazine that reviews important recent developments in the fields of optics and photonics. He has served as Editor since its creation. The project is run by an international group of young scientists and is sponsored by OSA and the European Physical Society. Since 2010, Volpe has also served as founding Vice-Chair of the European Physical Society Young Minds Committee.
Volpe’s research has encompassed experimental and theoretical aspects of optical manipulation, plasmonics, Raman spectroscopy, biophotonics, cylindrical vector beams, and fiber optics. He performed the original measurement that opened the new field of plasmon-based optical manipulation, developed new probe techniques for the measurement of forces and torques at the nanoscale, and contributed new methods to time- and space-resolved Raman spectroscopy of single living cells. In the process, he developed a large network of scientific collaborations on both sides of the Atlantic, and he has ongoing projects with research groups at the University of Arizona (U.S.), the University of Barcelona (Spain), the University of Naples (Italy) and his alma mater, ICFO (Spain).
Giovanni Volpe Statement
For nearly a century, OSA has been a shining beacon for the optics and photonics community, fostering research excellence, communication and networking. OSA must now meet the challenge of maintaining its highly-regarded position in the future. As the world rapidly changes, progresses, faces unprecedented social and environmental challenges, and becomes increasingly interconnected, OSA must be open to innovative ideas and technologies.
Today, OSA is able to rise to this challenge: it has over 16,000 members, whose diverse backgrounds range from basic science to business; it publishes most of the leading scientific journals and organizes most of the key conferences in optics and photonics; its exemplary attention to disadvantaged groups and minorities is praiseworthy; it stands out for its dynamic environment, to which researchers at every stage of their careers contribute. Nevertheless, despite the excellence of these achievements, OSA must not let down its guard. OSA must continue to offer cutting-edge services, excellent journals and conferences, and it must expand its international base of active members while attracting fresh young talent.
I have been involved with OSA since the very early stages of my scientific career, when I founded the ICFO-OSA Student Chapter (Barcelona, Spain). In the years that followed, I had the pleasure of building and leading a team of enthusiastic fellow students. I was also involved in founding and promoting the International OSA Network of Students (IONS-Project). Today, the IONS-Project has developed into the world's largest student-run conference cycle, bringing together hundreds of young researchers from four continents. I am proud of the collaborative enthusiasm for the sharing of science that characterizes the new generation of young scientists, and I feel humbled to stand in these elections as a candidate for the post of Director at Large. I am, at the same time, eager to take an active role in connecting researchers across fields and generations.
The main goals of my program are to:
- Cultivate more active members for OSA. The OSA membership base should grow globally and all members should beencouraged to take an active role in the Society.
- Break barriers. In today’s reality, many groups of people are, for different reasons, at a disadvantage when it comes to accomplishing their potential, for example, women, minorities, and people from developing countries. OSA should break through the glass ceiling that all too often limits these people’s aspirations.
- Attract young talent to OSA. OSA must play a fundamental role in forming minds and encouraging young researchers to take their share of responsibility and to engage in outreach activities, international networking and policy discussions. OSA is doing exceptionally well in pioneering programs such as the Student Chapters and the Young Professionals, aimed at attracting and retaining new talent; such programs should be strengthened and expanded, and further visionary programs should be developed.
- Build an international optics and photonics community. OSA should make full use of the new means of expression provided by the Internet and numerous social networking sites, and it should look towards the creation of a real, online, interlinked and interconnected community of scientists capable of crossing all kinds of barriers. As a concrete example, virtual conferences could greatly reduce the costs of attending meetings, and, as a result, participation would increase.
- Connect with sister societies. In addition to its long-standing collaboration with APS, IEEE and SPIE, OSA should have stronger ties with international societies ( in Asia, Latin America, Europe and anywhere else where innovative scientists are active) in order to strengthen its impact on the global community.
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Jun Ye
Profile
Jun Ye received his Ph.D. from the University of Colorado at Boulder (UCB), in 1997. His thesis, supervised by Dr. John Hall of JILA, documented the use of laser spectroscopy to achieve the highest measurement sensitivity of molecular absorptions to this day. Ye was then appointed an R.A. Millikan postdoctoral research associate and worked in Jeff Kimble’s group at Caltech from 1997–1999. There he started a new project to trap a single atom inside a high-finesse optical cavity for studies of strongly coupled cavity quantum electrodynamics. In 1999, Ye was appointed an Associate Fellow of JILA, a physicist of NIST, and an assistant Professor of Physics at the University of Colorado. Ye became a Fellow of JILA in 2001. He was appointed a Fellow of NIST in 2004 and a Professor of Physics adjoint at UCB in 2006. He was elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society in 2005 and a Fellow of The Optical Society in 2006. He was elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences in 2011.
Today, Ye’s research group explores the frontiers of light-matter interactions. Ye and his students prepare novel atomic and molecular materials in the quantum regime and precisely control these materials with light fields. His group also develops new technologies in high-precision laser spectroscopy, ultracold atoms and molecules, optical frequency metrology, quantum control, and ultrafast lasers. The group applies these new technologies to advance research in fundamental physics, precision measurement, and quantum physics. Current projects include investigations of ultracold strontium atoms confined in optical lattices for use in high-accuracy atomic clocks and quantum information science, the precise control of optical frequency combs for sensitive molecular detections and high-resolution quantum control, as well as extreme nonlinear optics for exploring new frontiers in spectroscopy. The group also produces ultracold molecules for tests of fundamental physics, research aimed at controlling ultracold chemical reactions, and studies of quantum dynamics in novel systems. Ye has coauthored more than 200 technical papers and presented more than 300 invited talks.
Ye has served on many committees of both The Optical Society and the American Physical Society. He is an elected chair of the APS Group on Precision Measurement & Fundamental Constants. Ye has also received numerous awards and honors, including the Frew Fellowship (Australian Academy of Science, 2011), the European Frequency and Time Forum Award (2009), the Gordon and Betty Moore Distinguished Scholar (Caltech, 2008), the I. I. Rabi Prize (APS, 2007), the Carl Zeiss Award (2007), the William F. Meggers Award (OSA, 2006), the Samuel Wesley Stratton Award (NIST, 2006), the Friedrich Wilhem Bessel Research Award (A. von Humboldt Foundation, 2006), the Arthur S. Flemming Award (for U.S. Federal employees, 2005), the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (2003), Technology Review Magazine’s TR100 Young Innovator (2002), a Gold Medal (U.S. Department of Commerce, 2001), and the Adolph Lomb Medal (OSA, 1999).
Jun Ye Statement
Optics has been an integral part of my professional life since my undergraduate days. My first scientific publication was in optics. The first professional society I joined was OSA, and my first invited talk was given at an OSA annual meeting. My first career award (the Adolph Lomb Medal) came from OSA in 1999. In many ways, I view OSA my home organization. It is thus a great honor to be considered as a candidate for Director at Large. This position will give me more and better opportunities to volunteer and serve our optics community.
Optics is playing an increasingly important role, both in the development of science and technology and in the training of a new generation of scientists and engineers. Thus, it is critical that we maintain OSA’s outstanding service tradition in technical meetings, peer-reviewed journals, outreach activities, industrial partnerships and member recognition. We must also gear up to face new challenges, such as the continued expansion and diversification of the field of optics, the massive flow of new technical information, the increasing interconnectedness of our technical world, and the growing need for more competent optics professionals. To meet these challenges, OSA will need to build on its strong foundation of technical excellence and continue to enhance its mission, services, and publications with innovative ideas.
OSA’s optics journals are at the forefront of scientific literature. OSA has been a pioneer in the development of online open-access journals, which distribute new scientific findings in a powerful and timely manner. OSA should continue to set the standard for the use of new communication and data processing technologies while working to maintain the highest possible standard of quality in the Society’s flagship publications. I would like to see us develop a method for coherently integrating novel research results with invited reviews from leading scientists, a strategy that would allow us to capture and communicate new trends in optics. Our referee process must be both rigorous and timely to ensure prompt publication of leading research results. My goal is for scientists in the field to consider OSA journals as their top choice for publishing optics research.
In a related effort, I will work hard to ensure that OSA conferences and topical meetings continue to be intellectually stimulating as well as comfortable and welcoming for scientists, especially students. We must be sensitive to people’s busy schedules by exploring ways to improve the technical excellence and focus of some of the larger meetings. If a scientist can attend only one optics meeting a year, I want them to think of one of our OSA meetings in which topical sessions provide the latest and greatest results in particular subfields and there are excellent opportunities for networking. Improving conferences and topical meetings is a challenge we must meet as soon as possible.
Additionally, I have interacted with a number of OSA Student Chapters. This has underscored my belief that student organizations are a key component of the Society because they attract new members and foster student interactions with established researchers. Consequently, I want to expand OSA’s efforts in student recruitment and organizations. Another top priority is to develop and establish stronger links between OSA and other international societies to foster closer collaboration and facilitate the worldwide exchange of ideas.
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