Optica Fellow Olga Kocharovskaya received her Ph.D. from the N.I. Lobachevsky Nizhny Novgorod State University, Russia, and Dr. of Sciences (Habilitation) degree from the Institute of Applied Physics, Russian Academy of Sciences, Russia. She is a distinguished professor of physics at Texas A&M University (TAMU). Prior to joining the TAMU faculty, she held the Leading Scientist position at the Institute of Applied Physics, RAS, and the Adjunct Independent Researcher position at the Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium.

Kocharovskaya’s research is in the areas of quantum and nonlinear optics, laser physics, x-ray optics, attosecond physics, and quantum information science. A trailblazer in the field, her work on electromagnetically induced transparency, lasing without inversion, “stopped light”, and shaping the waveforms of the single gamma photons via their resonant interaction with the nuclear ensembles is widely known. .

She is a dedicated volunteer and mentor, serving on editorial boards, international advisory boards and award committees, and organizing international conferences. A Fellow of Optica and the American Physical Society, she has received several additional honors, including the inaugural Willis Lamb Medal for Laser Physics and Quantum Electronics, the Association of Former Texas A&M Students Distinguished Achievement Award in Research, and the Texas A&M University Distinguished Professor Award.

She is the first woman to win the Herbert Walther Award for her “field-opening contributions to lasing without inversion and electromagnetically induced transparency and for theory and experiments that initiated the field of gamma-ray quantum optics”.