A rising tide lifts all boats

DANIEL MCCARTHY, SENIOR EDITOR daniel.mccarthy@photonics.com

After nearly two decades, I recently returned to the Photonics Spectra editorial team, where I am stepping into Susan Petrie’s former role as senior editor. Sue’s solicitation and management of feature articles would be a tough enough act to follow, but during my last go around here, the standard for editorial, branding, and industry stewardship were all set by founder Teddi Laurin herself.

It sounds trite — especially in this context — to say I’m excited to be back on the Photonics Media team, though I certainly am. But more importantly, I’m more than a little stoked to have resumed an active role in this industry. I missed photonics. No other industry has quantum physicists and laser lab jockeys at one end and manufacturing engineers at the other. No other industry presents the challenge of finding common ground between lasers and machine vision and the endlessly complex range of optical technologies they both rely on. As Teddi intuited, few industries rely as strongly on serendipitous conversations, connections, and collaborations to spark breakout advancements more than the photonics industry does.

Fostering these encounters and interactions has been the continuing editorial mission of Photonics Spectra. The technologies involved require some demanding specialties, and the resulting silo effect can limit the spread of innovative ideas and solutions about the practical applications of light.

We’ll do our best to curate the best and brightest research and applications. But we can’t do it alone. It’s challenging enough for us to formulate the right questions most of the time, much less find all the right answers.

As Photonics Spectra’s new senior editor, I encourage you all to reach out to us. Let us know what your questions are, what problems you solved this week, what photonic tools you’re using and why. Tell us what challenges remain before you can take your research or application to the next step.

Someone out there may have a solution for you, or they may discover you solved a challenge for them. The more conversations we can inspire in this industry, the more the industry wins. A rising tide lifts all boats.