Optica Elects Vice President, Director at Large

The membership of Optica, formerly OSA, elected Gerd Leuchs, director emeritus at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light, as the society’s 2022 vice president. In addition, the membership elected Judith Dawes, professor of physics and director of MQ Photonics Research Centre at Macquarie University (Australia), director at large for a 2022-2024 term.

Optica announced election results at the Optica annual business meeting, held during the Frontiers in Optics + Laser Science Conference.

“Gerd has been an active member of our organization throughout his professional life,” said Optica CEO Elizabeth Rogan. “His groundbreaking work in laser spectroscopy and quantum communication and his extensive knowledge of our organization will be great assets.”

Gerd Leuchs. Courtesy of Optica.

Leuchs also works part-time at the University of Erlangen-Nürnberg and is currently affiliated with the Institute of Applied Physics of the Russian Academy of Sciences at Nizhny-Novgorod. He also has close ties to the University of Ottawa as an adjunct professor.

His scientific work includes quantum beats, photo-electron angular distributions in multiphoton ionization, quantum noise reduced and entangled light beams, and solitons in optical fibers.

An Optica fellow since 2004, Leuchs has authored more than 400 publications in scientific journals and has edited three books. In 2005, the European Physical Society awarded him the Quantum Electronics and Optics Prize. In 2018, the German Physical Society and Optica presented him with the Herbert Walther Award.

Judith Dawes. Courtesy of Optica.

Dawes, an Optica fellow since 2019, is currently researching the collective interactions of light at the nanoscale, applying nanophotonics to imaging and sensing. Her research achievements include the crystal growth, optical characterization, and laser operation of a new laser crystal, Yb:YAB, which emits tunable, self-frequency-doubled, infrared and green light; and the invention of a laser-cured protein solder for laser microsurgery to repair severed nerves and blood vessels.