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4/30/2008
Optical Society Honors Bahaa Saleh
WASHINGTON, April 30-The Optical Society (OSA) has awarded Bahaa Saleh the Distinguished Service Award in recognition of his distinguished service to the Optical Society and the optics and photonics community, and for leadership in the area of publications. Saleh is a professor and former chair of the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at Boston University. He will start a new position as dean of the University of Central Florida (UCF) College of Optics and Photonics and director of the UCF Center for Research and Education in Optics and Lasers (CREOL) in 2009. "OSA is delighted to honor the top professionals in the field of optics," said Elizabeth Rogan, OSA executive director. "Bahaa Saleh is a pioneer who has made invaluable contributions to the research, education and understanding of optics. OSA congratulates him on his achievements." The Distinguished Service Award was first awarded in 1973 and recognizes individuals who, over an extended period of time, have served OSA in an outstanding way, especially through volunteer participation in its management, operation or planning in such ways as editorship of a periodical, organization of meetings, or other service to the Society. Saleh joins an exceptional group of 13 past Distinguished Service Award recipients. OSA conferred 17 awards this year recognizing various achievements in the optics and photonics field. The award process begins with the submission of a nomination form, a brief citation summarizing the nominee's accomplishments, emphasizing those that make him/her a candidate for the particular award, a one-page narrative description touching on the most significant events in the candidate's career, a curriculum vitae and a minimum of four letters of reference for the candidate. The OSA Board of Directors appoints a committee to oversee each nomination process. The committee is then responsible for evaluating each nominee and choosing the person most deserving of the award.  Finally, the committee's recommendations are presented to the OSA Board of Directors for their review and approval.  "The OSA Board takes great pride in the accomplishments of these outstanding scientists, researchers, educators and businesspeople," said OSA President Rod Alferness.  "We are honored to recognize the dedication and accomplishments of our peers." About OSA: Uniting more than 70,000 professionals from 134 countries, the Optical Society (OSA) brings together the global optics community through its programs and initiatives. Since 1916 OSA has worked to advance the common interests of the field, providing educational resources to the scientists, engineers and business leaders who work in the field by promoting the science of light and the advanced technologies made possible by optics and photonics. OSA publications, events, technical groups and programs foster optics knowledge and scientific collaboration among all those with an interest in optics and photonics. For more information, visit www.osa.org.

5/16/2008
“POLARIZATION OPTICS OF ANISOTROPIC MICROSTRUCTURED FIBERS”-Tomasz R. Wolinski
“POLARIZATION OPTICS OF ANISOTROPIC MICROSTRUCTURED FIBERS”   Tomasz R. Wolinski   Abstract: This development of optical fibers with two-dimensional patterns of air holes running down their length and liquid crystals with various birefringence properties has reinvigorated research in both fields of fiber optics and liquid crystals. It has greatly - and fundamentally - broadened the range of specialty optical fibers as photonic crystals fibers infiltrated with liquid crystals envisaged for polarization control by demonstrating that optical fibers can be more “special” than previously thought. This presentation will describe the basic physics and technology behind these developments, underlying fundamental similarities between two specific classes of anisotropic microstructured fibers: highly birefringent polarization maintaining fibers and photonic liquid crystals fibers illustrated with some of the potential applications demonstrated at the Faculty of Physics, Warsaw University of Technology over the past few years. Biography: Tomasz R. Wolinski received his M. Sc. (with honors) in applied physics in 1980, his Ph. D. in Physics (with honors) in 1985, and D. Sc. in Physics-Optics in 1995, all from Warsaw Univ. of Technology, Poland. Full professor with the Faculty of Physics, Warsaw Univ. of Technology and Head of its Optics Division (since 1997); Assoc. Editor of Optical Engineering, and Springer journal Opto-Electronics Review; Scientific Title of the Professor of Physics granted by the President of Poland (2002). President of the Photonics Society of Poland (since 2008), president of the SPIE Poland Chapter (2002-2008), chair of the Optoelectronics Section, Committee of Electronics and Telecommunication of the Polish Academy of Sciences (since 2007) vice-chair of the Polish Committee of Optoelectronics (since 2003); Fellow of SPIE (2004), member of OSA & IEEE; General and Founding Chair of SPIE’s series of Int. Congresses of Optics and Optoelectronics initially held in Warsaw (2005). Current research interests include polarization phenomena in optical fibers and liquid crystals; photonic (liquid) crystal fibers; fiber optic sensors and systems; author of over 230 journal and conf. papers, incl. 7 patents in the U.S., Canada, and Poland; 2 review chapters in Progress in Optics and Enc. of Optical Engineering, and more than 60 peer-reviewed journal papers; invited speaker at several international conferences in recent years.   Contact information: SID student branch chair Meizi Jiao: http://sid.creol.ucf.edu/ Chapter advisor: Prof. Shin-Tson Wu; swu@mail.ucf.edu                                                  

2/12/2008
2008 SPIE Gold Medal Award
M.J. Soileau: Beginning in 1977, the Gold Medal Award has been awarded annually in recognition of outstanding engineering or scientific accomplishments in optics, electro-optics, or photographic technologies or applications. See http://spie.org/x3077.xml