2009 Up-and-Coming Women in Optics Interview Series

The 2009 Up-and-Coming Women in Optics Interview Series profiles professional women, striving to make long-lasting contributions to the field of optics and the science-education community. Though they reside in an array of countries, have different educational backgrounds and diverse career goals, they all share a commitment to the OSA community. Check in frequently to read a new interview; compiled by dedicated OSA volunteer, Jennifer Kruschwitz.

The interviews will be featured here in the Minorities and Women in OSA section of osa.org and in the monthly newsletter. To receive periodic email updates, including the MWOSA newsletter, please contact the MWOSA Department at mwosa@osa.org.

	Miriam Boer, University of Maryland, College Park, USA Miriam Boer is a PhD student studying Biochemistry at the University of Maryland.
	Audrey Ellerbee, Harvard University, USA Audrey Ellerbee is a scientist studying biomedical optics at Harvard University. She graduated from Princeton with a B.S.E. in electrical engineering and a PhD in biomedical engineering from Duke University. She served as an Arthur H. Guenther Congressional Fellow and is an active member of OSA, SPIE, and the National Society of Black Engineers.
	Yunhee Kim, Seoul National University, South Korea Yunhee Kim is a PhD student at Seoul National University studying optical three-dimensional (3D) display.
	Brooke Hester, University of Maryland, College Park, USA Brooke Hester is a PhD student working in the Optical Tweezers Lab at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). In addition, she recently founded the OSA University of Maryland, College Park Student Chapter.
	Alia Sabur, Konkuk University, South Korea In February of 2008, at age 19, the Guinness Book of World Records named Alia Sabur the world’s youngest university professor. She is currently teaching at Konkuk University, in South Korea.
	Ciara Close, University College Dublin, Ireland Ciara Close is currently a Ph.D. candidate in Photopolymers and their applications at the University College Dublin.
	Yasaman Soudagar, École Polytechnique de Montréal, Canada Yasaman Soudagar grew up in Tehran, Iran. Her story is one of a struggling female student fighting to be considered an equal by her male counterparts to a promising physicist with the endless possibilities.
	Ruby Raheem, University of Edinburgh, Scotland Ruby Raheem does graduate-level Biophotonics research at the University of Edinburgh. When she's not using optics to probe into the molecular mechanism of living cells, she's organizing optics activities on campus, and dedicating time to reach out to young students.
	Desiré Whitmore, University of California, Irvine, USA Desiré Whitmore is a 3rd year Ph.D. student at the University of California, Irvine, studying Chemical and Material Physics.
	Meredith Lee, Stanford University, USA Meredith Lee is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Electrical Engineering at Stanford University, and has been President of the Stanford Chapter of OSA and SPIE since 2006.