Anna Consortini is a retired Professor of Physics of the Università degli Studi di Firenze, Italy. She is still active in teaching in the fields of Optics and Optometry. She holds an undergraduate degree in Physics and a Ph.D. in Electromagnetic Waves. Before becoming a professor, she worked at the National Research Council, CNR, of Italy. She was President of the International Commission for Optics from 1993-1996 and a founder of SIOF, the Italian Society for Optics and Photonics. Since 1993, she has been active in International Courses and Laboratory Experiments of Optics, and in the TSOSA Committee of the ICTP, Trieste.

Consortini’s research activity, initially in the field of radio waves including radar, space vehicles and antennas, mostly dealt with theoretical and experimental problems in Classic and Modern Optics and Quantum Physics. She has given internationally well-known, original contributions in the fields of laser cavities and fundamental problems of diffraction, optical images, problems of quantum mechanics, statistical optics, adaptive optics, laser beam propagation and scintillation through the atmospheric turbulence, and development of laser methods to investigate turbulence. She published more than 160 papers and presented many more Congress talks.

She received the 2018 Robert E. Hopkins Leadership Award from OSA “for her outstanding dedication to promoting optics at an international level with very valuable leadership in institutions and scientific societies like ICO (International Commission for Optics), ICTP, OSA, and SIOF.” She was elected a Fellow of Optica in 1989.