Dr. Patrick Leisching is the new vice president of research and development at diode and ultrafast fiber laser maker Toptica Photonics, the company announced this week. Leisching, who began his new position March 1, has more than 10 years experience working in the telecommunication division of Siemens and later at Nokia Siemens Network. Leisching began his career at the Technical University in Munich, Germany, in the field of ultrashort pulse physics. After that, he became a PhD student at the RWTH Aachen in the group of professor Kurz, a renowned expert for pulsed terahertz sources and their applications. Leisching’s first postdoc position took him to Paris to the Ecole Polytechnique, after which he went to work on fiber laser system development with professor Thomas Elsässer at the Max Born Institute in Berlin. At Toptica, Leisching will manage 25 R&D staff working on the entire range of optoelectronic system development, the company said. He replaces Dr. Frank Lison, who is now concentrating on general management of Till Photonics GmbH, Toptica's recent acquisition in the field of live cell imaging (See "Toptica Buys Till Photonics") https://www.photonics.com/Article.aspx?AID=38585 "With Toptica’s technical diversity and complexity and its broad product range, it took us a while to identify a suitable new technical head for our R & D group," said Toptica President Wilhelm Kaenders. "But today we proudly announce that we found in Dr. Patrick Leisching a personality that has a strong legacy in the scientific community and its product range stemming from his background at the university.” For more information, visit: www.toptica-usa.com