Director-at-Large Candidates
Three will be elected.
Naomi J. Halas
Rice University, U.S.A.
OSA is an outstanding professional organization that serves
its membership extremely well,
and its members are the primary
reason for its ongoing success.
The willingness of so many of its
members to serve the organization has kept it vital, energetic
and evolving as rapidly as the
expanding field of optics it represents. It is an honor to stand as
a possible candidate for director
at large, with the opportunity to
work to make the Society even
better through new innovations
and opportunities.
As a researcher and educator
in optics whose interests span
many professional societies, I am
a somewhat unconventional candidate for this position; however,
the interdisciplinary, multiple-society perspective I would bring
to this position could be very
valuable for the OSA community
as the Society moves forward. As
we celebrate the 50th anniversary
of the invention of the laser, we
are increasingly appreciative of
the ever-expanding role of optics
in scientific research, in new
technologies, and in applications
that can benefit society. This
continued expansion is all the
more impressive given the frequently marginal role of the field
of optics in the curricula at many
institutions. The need to make
optics accessible early, and across
a wide range of disciplines, is of
central importance to our future,
as we train and prepare the next
generation of OSA members. As
a society, we can use our Web
presence even more effectively as
a resource for optics education,
which will increase OSA’s global
presence and impact well beyond
its current membership.
The outstanding track record
of OSA in establishing peer-reviewed journals and developing new, Web-based journals,
beginning with Optics Express, is
an important success. Technical
publishing is highly competitive, however, and OSA journals
must now compete with new
journals for the same submissions.
Promoting the popularity of our
journals by including invited
articles by our OSA awardees and
Fellows, for example, would help
to maintain our journals at the
forefront of optics research and
enhance their profile and impact.
Our society is global, and it
reflects the 21st century optical
community. Maintaining and
increasing our international
profile and membership, and the
services we offer our international members, is of increasing
importance. By collaborating
with other optical societies and
professional organizations worldwide, we should work toward
effective international meetings
and conferences that reduce
redundancy but increase member
interaction and access.
Douglas W. Hall
Corning Incorporated, U.S.A.
The Optical Society is one of the
premier technical societies in the
world, serving its members with
high-quality peer-reviewed print
and electronic journals as well as
vibrant, well-organized general
and topical meetings in the field
of optical science and technology.
The Society has recently focused
on becoming an international
organization as well as the clear
voice of optical science to national, state and local governments
in the United States. It does so
many things well; I would like to
help the Society do even more for
its membership and the world.
As is obvious to all OSA
members, the rate of movement of ideas from academic
research to product development
to commercial deployment is
accelerating. The Optical Society
has traditionally excelled in supporting its academic stakeholders. In certain optical technology
areas, such as optical communications and medical optics, it
has been extremely successful in
linking research and commercial development; its technical
meetings and other events have
helped members in academia
understand real-world problems
that need to be solved. They have
also educated industrial members
about concepts getting ready for
widespread exploitation.
I would like to see the Society
perform a similar function in
other rapidly developing technologies of major importance
to the world. An area of special
interest is solar technology, a field
in which our members’ optical
and opto-electronic expertise
can flourish. To be successful in
this area, OSA must increase the
participation of large, medium-sized, and start-up companies, as
well as government laboratories
around the world. OSA must be
a coherent, consistent and trusted
voice of the technology to governments at multiple levels. I feel
that my experience in industrial
research and development in both
telecommunications and in solar
technology will enable me to help
the Optical Society to expand
the strong links it has between
academia, industry and the government into other fields.
Nan M. Jokerst
Duke University, U.S.A.
OSA plays a critical role in optics
and photonics today, serving as a
focal point for networking pro-
fessionals and companies, knowl-
edge dissemination, advance-
ment of optics education, and
leadership on the evolving path
of optical science and its applica-
tions in the world. The leadership
of OSA in optics and photonics is
both a responsibility and an on-
going challenge. Strong, visionary
leadership has been a hallmark of
OSA. As a director at large, I will
nurture what is best about OSA
and strive to meet the challenges
that we face.
