Optica is a professional society of individuals and companies with an interest in optics and photonics. It publishes journals and organizes conferences and exhibitions. It currently has about 488,000 customers in 183 countries, including nearly 300 companies.
SPIE is an international not-for-profit professional society for optics and photonics technology, founded in 1955. It organizes technical conferences, trade exhibitions, and continuing education programs for researchers and developers in the light-based fields of physics, including: optics, photonics, and imaging engineering. The society publishes peer-reviewed scientific journals, conference proceedings, monographs, tutorial texts, field guides, and reference volumes in print and online. SPIE is especially well-known for Photonics West, one of the laser and photonics industry's largest combined conferences and tradeshows which is held annually in San Francisco. SPIE also participates as partners in leading educational initiatives, and in 2020, for example, provided more than $5.8 million in support of optics education and outreach programs around the world.
The University of Arizona College of Optical Sciences, considered the largest institute for optics education in the United States, is dedicated to research and education in optics with an emphasis on optical engineering. The college offers more than 90 courses in optical sciences, and a Bachelor of Science degree in Optical Sciences and Engineering, Masters and Doctoral degree programs in Optical Sciences, as well as a dual master's degree in Optical Sciences and Business Administration. The college also offers comprehensive distance learning courses leading to a Professional Graduate Certificate or a master's degree and markets non-credit short courses on DVD to optics professionals.
Michal Lipson is an American physicist known for her work on silicon photonics. A member of the National Academy of Sciences since 2019, Lipson was named a 2010 MacArthur Fellow for contributions to silicon photonics especially towards enabling GHz silicon active devices. Until 2014, she was the Given Foundation Professor of Engineering at Cornell University in the school of electrical and computer engineering and a member of the Kavli Institute for Nanoscience at Cornell. She is now the Eugene Higgins Professor of Electrical Engineering at Columbia University. In 2009 she co-founded the company PicoLuz, which develops and commercializes silicon nanophotonics technologies. In 2019, she co-founded Voyant Photonics, which develops next generation lidar technology based on silicon photonics. In 2020 Lipson was elected the 2021 vice president of Optica, and serves as the Optica president in 2023.
Advanced Telescope for High-ENergy Astrophysics (Athena) is an X-ray observatory mission selected by European Space Agency (ESA) within its Cosmic Vision program to address the Hot and Energetic Universe scientific theme. Athena will operate in the energy range of 0.2–12 keV and will offer spectroscopic and imaging capabilities exceeding those of currently operating X-ray astronomy satellites – e.g. the Chandra X-ray Observatory and XMM-Newton – by at least one order of magnitude on several parameter spaces simultaneously.
Hakeem Muata Oluseyi is an American astrophysicist, cosmologist, inventor, educator, science communicator, author, actor, veteran, and humanitarian.
Mona Jarrahi is an Iranian Engineering professor at the University of California, Los Angeles. She investigates novel materials, terahertz/millimeter-wave electronics and optoelectronics, microwave photonics, imaging and spectroscopy systems.
Jelena Vučković is a Serbian-born American professor and Chair of the Department of Electrical Engineering at Stanford University, and a courtesy faculty member in the Department of Applied Physics at Stanford University. Vučković leads the Nanoscale and Quantum Photonics (NQP) Lab, and is a faculty member of the Ginzton Lab, PULSE Institute, SIMES Institute, and Bio-X at Stanford. She was the inaugural director of the Q-FARM initiative. She is a Member of the National Academy of Sciences, and a Fellow of The Optical Society, the American Physical Society and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.
Erika Tobiason Hamden is an American astrophysicist and assistant professor at the University of Arizona and Steward Observatory. Her research focuses on developing ultraviolet (UV) detector technology, ultraviolet–visible spectroscopy (UV/VIS) instrumentation and spectroscopy, and galaxy evolution. She served as the project scientist and project manager of a UV multi-object spectrograph, FIREBall-2, that is designed to observe the circumgalactic medium (CGM). She is a 2019 TED fellow.
Marija Strojnik Scholl is a Slovene astrophysicist currently working as a distinguished professor at the Optical Research Center in León, Mexico. She is best known for developing an autonomous system for optical navigation based on CCD technology which is currently used in nearly all commercial aircraft and numerous spacecraft, including in the NASA Cassini mission.
Jingyu Lin is a Chinese-American physicist and engineer working in the field of wide bandgap semiconductors and photonic devices. She is a co-inventor of MicroLED. In 2000, the husband-wife research team led by Hongxing Jiang and Jingyu Lin proposed and realized the operation of the first MicroLED and passive driving MicroLEDmicrodisplay. In 2009, their team and colleagues at III-N Technology, Inc. and Texas Tech University realized and patented the first active driving MicroLED microdisplay in VGA format by heterogeneously integrating MicroLED array with Si CMOS active-matrix driver. MicroLED display market is expected to hit US$24,307.4 Million by 2027.
Giovanni Fazio is an American physicist at Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian. He is an astrophysicist who has initiated and participated in multiple observation programs.
Peter J. Delfyett Jr is an American engineer and Pegasus Professor and Trustee Chair Professor of Optics, ECE & Physics at the University of Central Florida College of Optics and Photonics.
Audrey K. Ellerbee Bowden is an American engineer and Dorothy J. Wingfield Phillips Chancellor's Faculty Fellow at Vanderbilt University, as well as an Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Electrical Engineering. She is a Fellow of Optica, the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering and the International Society for Optics and Photonics (SPIE).
Natalia M. Litchinitser is an Electrical Engineer and Professor at Duke University. She works on optical metamaterials and their application in photonic devices. Litchinitser is a Fellow of the American Physical Society, The Optical Society and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.
Céline d'Orgeville is a Professor and instrument scientist at the Australian National University Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics. She leads teams designing laser and optical systems for ground based astronomical telescopes. She is a Fellow of SPIE and the Astronomical Society of Australia.
Carmen S. Menoni is an Argentine-American physicist who is the University Distinguished Professor at Colorado State University. Her research considers oxide materials for interference coatings and spectrometry imaging. She is a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, American Physical Society, The Optical Society and SPIE. Menoni served as the President of the IEEE Photonics Society from 2020 to 2021.
Kimani Christopher Toussaint, Jr. is an American engineer who is a professor and senior associate dean in the School of Engineering at Brown University. His research considers the development of quantitative nonlinear optical imaging methods and advanced optical techniques for nanotechnology, and the characterization of plasmonic nanostructure. He is a Fellow of Optica.
Marjorie Pettit Meinel was an American astronomer and optical scientist. For over 60 years she was the research collaborator and wife of fellow astronomer Aden Meinel. Her research focused on telescope design and optics, the technological applications of solar energy, atmospheric phenomena including the optical effects of volcanic eruptions, and the study of variable stars.
Tara Michele Fortier is a Canadian physicist and Group Leader in the Time and Frequency Division at National Institute of Standards and Technology. Her research considers precision optical and microwave metrology. She was elected Fellow of the American Physical Society in 2022 and awarded the SPIE Harold E. Edgerton Award in High-Speed Optics in 2023.
