Xi-Cheng Zhang is a Chinese-born American physicist, currently serving as the Parker Givens Chair of Optics at the University of Rochester, and the director of the Institute of Optics. He is also the Chairman of the Board and President of Zomega Terahertz Corporation.
The John Tyndall Award is given to the "individual who has made pioneering, highly significant, or continuing technical or leadership contributions to fiber optics technology". The award is named after John Tyndall (1820-1893), who demonstrated for the first time internal reflection.
Vladimir (Vlad) M. Shalaev is a Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Scientific Director for Nanophotonics at Birck Nanotechnology Center, Purdue University.
Michal Lipson is an American physicist known for her work on silicon photonics. 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 The Optical Society and will serve as OSA President in 2023.
Robert Louis Byer is a physicist. He was president of the Optical Society of America in 1994 and of the American Physical Society in 2012.
The IEEE Photonics Society, formerly the IEEE Lasers and Electro-Optics Society (LEOS), is a society of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), focused on the scientific and engineering knowledge about the field of quantum electronics. In the hierarchy of IEEE, the Photonics Society is one of the close to 40 technical societies organized under the IEEE Technical Activities Board.
Rod C. Alferness was president of The Optical Society in 2008.
Susan Nicole Houde-Walter is an academic and technical executive in the field of optics. She was Professor of Optics at the University of Rochester from 1987-2005. She is now running LaserMaxDefense, a manufacturer of laser equipment for military and law enforcement. She served as president of the Optical Society in 2005 and has travelled extensively with the US military.
Anthony Michael Johnson is an American experimental physicist, a Professor of Physics, and a Professor of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC). He is the Director of the Center for Advanced Studies in Photonics Research (CASPR), also situated on campus at UMBC. Since his election to the 2002 term as president of the Optical Society, formerly the Optical Society of America, Johnson has the distinction of being the first and only African-American president to date. Johnson's research interests include the ultrafast photophysics and nonlinear optical properties of bulk, nanostructured, and quantum well semiconductor structures, ultrashort pulse propagation in fibers and high-speed lightwave systems. His research has helped to better understand processes that occur in ultrafast time frames of 1 quadrillionth of a second. Ultrashort pulses of light have been used to address technical and logistical challenges in medicine, telecommunications, homeland security, and have many other applications that enhance contemporary life.
Benjamin John Eggleton FAA, FTSE, FOSA, FIEEE is the Director of The University of Sydney Nano Institute. He also currently serves as Co-Director of the NSW Smart Sensing Network (NSSN).
Michael S. Feld was an American physicist, best known for his work on quantum optics as well as medical applications of lasers.
James Clair Wyant is professor at the College of Optical Sciences at the University of Arizona where he was Director (1999–2005) and Dean (2005–2012). He received a B.S. in physics from Case Western Reserve University and M.S. and Ph.D. in optics from the University of Rochester.
Brian J. Orr is an Australian scientist known for various experimental and theoretical contributions to molecular and optical physics, including laser spectroscopy and optical parametric oscillators.
The William F. Meggers Award has been awarded annually since 1970 by the Optical Society for outstanding contributions to spectroscopy.
John E. Bowers is an American physicist, engineer, researcher and educator. He is the Fred Kavli Chair in Nanotechnology, the director of the Institute for Energy Efficiency and a distinguished professor in the Departments of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Materials at University of California, Santa Barbara. He is also the deputy director of American Institute of Manufacturing of Integrated Photonics.
The Edwin H. Land Medal is jointly presented by The Optical Society and the Society for Imaging Science and Technology (IS&T). The Land Medal was established in 1992 to honor the noted scientist and entrepreneur Edwin H. Land, who is noted for his invention of instant photography, for founding the Polaroid Corporation, and for developing the theory of Retinex, amongst many other accomplishments. It is funded by the Polaroid Foundation, the Polaroid Retirees Association and by individual contributors Manfred Heiting, Theodore Voss and John J. McCann. The medal honors individuals who, using the science of optics, "have demonstrated pioneering enterpreneurial activity that has had a major impact on the public."
Patricia R. Wakeling (1923-2016) was the recipient of the Optical Society of America (OSA) Stephen D. FantoneDistinguished Service Award in 1990 and Managing Editor of the scientific journal Applied Optics for three decades. Wakefield was integral in the launch of OSA's first two journals.
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.
Debabrata Goswami FInstP FRSC, is an Indian chemist and the Prof. S. Sampath Chair Professor of Chemistry, at the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur. He is also a Professor of The Department of Chemistry and The Center for Lasers & Photonics at the same Institute. Goswami is an associate editor of the open-access journal Science Advances. He is also an Academic Editor for PLOS One and PeerJ Chemistry. He has contributed to the theory of Quantum Computing as well as nonlinear optical spectroscopy. His work is documented in more than 200 research publications. He is an elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, Fellow of the Institute of Physics, the SPIE, and The Optical Society. He is also a Senior Member of the IEEE, has been awarded a Swarnajayanti Fellowship for Chemical Sciences, and has held a Wellcome Trust Senior Research Fellowship. He is the third Indian to be awarded the International Commission for Optics Galileo Galilei Medal for excellence in optics.
Niels Quack is a Swiss and German engineer specialized in optical micro engineering. He is a SNSF professor at EPFL and director of the Photonic Micro- and Nanosystems Laboratory at its School of Engineering.
