48 | OPN October 2006 www.osa-opn.org

OSA TODAY | OUTREACH

A Legacy of Leadership:

Celebrating 90 Years of OSA Colleen Morrison

OSA’s founders recognized that there was a void in the optics industry

and were looking to create a place where they could come together as a network of colleagues to share ideas, discuss innova-tive new developments and grow profes-sionally and personally. Today, OSA still follows the mission laid out by its earliest governing documents.

The early years

With no guidelines for the process of spearheading industrial research, optical pioneers such as C.E.K. Mees, Perley Nutting and George Eastman were looking to create a forum through which those who were facing similar challenges could come together and learn from one another. The spirit of industrialism was reflected in the Society’s membership: Only one-third of its first 74 members were from academic backgrounds. Of that third, the majority were focused on the applied side of the field.

Mees, who is thought by some to have been the inspiration for the organization’s founding, supported the idea that indus-

An evolving societyOver the years, the Society’s membership grew, along with broader public and sci-entific interest in the fields of optics and photonics. Meetings and publications took off as the breadth of the science grew and technical achievements became more widespread. Of these advancements, the invention of the laser was by far the greatest catalyst for change.

“The event that has had the most impact on OSA has to be the invention of the laser,” said John Howard, OSA’s historian and the founding editor of Applied Optics. “After that milestone, a huge wave of interest in optics then swept the physics and engineering communities.” Also around that time, OSA had just started a second journal for applications in optics—Applied Optics. “It was the right move at the right time,” Howard said.

In the mid-1960s, OSA experienced a strong surge in paper submissions for meetings and in journals. As OSA became more involved in the newest areas of laser optics and engineering, there was a push from some key members to move

trial findings should be publicized broad-ly in order to spur future innovations and technological advancements. Mees’ published writings in Science around the time of OSA’s founding specifically spoke to his support of information sharing. This text emphasized the importance of

regularly publishing results of merit for the good of the field.

The first order of business for the new Optical Society of America was to develop resources that would facilitate an open ex-change of information between members within the field of optics. And so, in late 1916, the first annual meeting of OSA took place, and, in 1917, the Journal of the Optical Society of America was born.

In late 1916, the first annual meeting of OSA took

place, and, in 1917, the Journal of the Optical Society

of America was born.

Founded in 1916, OSA began with a small gathering of 30 scientists in Rochester, N.Y. Ninety years later, it has evolved to become the professional home to 14,000 optical physicists and engineers around the globe.

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Left to right: Perley Nutting, OSA’s first

president; Jarus Quinn, first executive director;

Eric Van Stryland, 2006 president;

and Elizabeth Rogan, current

executive director

Years of Innovation

OPN October 2006 | 49

the Society from a volunteer-only struc-ture to a staffed, full-service organization. Proponents of this move included Stanley Ballard, Van Zandt Williams, R. Bowling Barnes, Bruce Billings, Walter Baird, John Strong and Dave MacAdam.

The OSA Board listened. In 1960, they hired Mary Warga as executive secretary. In 1969, they hired Jarus Quinn to provide further staff support to the organization. When Warga retired in 1972, Quinn succeeded her, with the title of executive director.

Quinn played a significant role in shaping what OSA has become. During his tenure, he worked with the vision of the Board of Directors and helped to lead the Society through many changes, including the relocation of the organiza-tion’s headquarters, the launch of Optics News—the precursor to Optics & Photon-

1907 r Albert Abraham Michelson, for his optical precision instru-ments and the spectroscopic and metrological investigations carried out with their aid.

1923 r Robert Andrews Millikan, for his work on the elementary charge of electricity and on the photoelectric effect.

1930 r Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman, for his work on the scatter-ing of light and for the discovery of the effect named after him.

1953 r Frederik Zernike, for his demonstration of the phase contrast method, especially for his invention of the phase contrast microscope.

1955 r Willis Lamb, for his discoveries concerning the fine structure of the hydrogen spectrum.

1964 r Charles H. Townes and Aleksandr M. Prokharov, for funda-mental work in the field of quantum electronics, which has led to the construction of oscillators and amplifiers based on the maser- laser principle.

1966 r Alfred Kastler, for the discovery and development of optical methods for studying Hertzian resonances in atoms.

1967 r Haldan Keffer Hartline and George Wald, for their discoveries concerning the primary physiological and chemical visual processes.

1971 r Gerhard Herzberg, for his contributions to the knowledge of electronic structure of molecules, particularly free radicals.

1971 r Dennis Gabor, for his invention and development of the holographic method.

1975 r James Rainwater, Aage N. Bohr and Ben R. Mottelson, for the discovery of the connection between collective motion and particle motion in atomic nuclei and the development of the theory of the structure of the atomic nucleus based on this connection.

1981 r Nicolaas Bloembergen and Arthur L. Schawlow, for their contributions to the development of laser spectroscopy.

1996 r Robert F. Curl, Jr., for the discovery of fullerenes, the third major form of carbon after diamond and graphite.

1997 r Steven Chu, Claude Cohen-Tannoudji and William D. Phillips, for the development of methods to cool and trap atoms with laser light.

2000 r Zhores I. Alferov and Herbert Kroemer, for basic work on information and communication technology and for developing semi-conductor heterostructures used in high-speed- and opto-electronics.

2001 r Eric Cornell, Carl Wieman and Wolfgang Ketterle, for the achievement of Bose-Einstein condensation in dilute gases of alkali atoms, and for the early fundamental studies of the properties of the condensates.

2005 r Roy J. Glauber, John L. Hall and Theodor W. Hänsch, for the development of laser-based precision spectroscopy, including the optical frequency comb technique, and contributions to the quantum theory of optical coherence.

ics News—and, significantly, the internal production of its own journals, including copy-editing and manuscript processing. In fact, Quinn developed much of the framework for today’s organization.

Today

In 2002, the Board appointed Eliza-beth Rogan to become OSA’s executive director. Rogan has been integral to the Society’s success in meeting the needs of its global optics community. She has con-tinually challenged the Society to adapt its programs and services as needed to address new areas of interest in the field.

OSA has risen to the occasion. From online conference proceedings to open-access, quick-to-publication journals like Optics Express, the Society is on the cusp of industry developments.

“Many segments of the fields of optics and photonics have grown at a rapid place,” said Howard, including laser applications, fiber optics, optical communications, medical applications and optical scanning for industry. “The last 30 or 40 years have been golden years for optics.”

Today, the Society publishes or co-publishes 11 journals, coordinates nearly 30 conferences and meetings each year, and provides online support services and networking forums. All of these services exist because of the time and dedication of OSA’s members. With the continued dedication and support of those in the field, the Society is poised to continue to evolve to meet the demands of the scien-tific community. t

[ Colleen Morrison (cmorri@osa.org) is OSA’s director of public and government relations. ]

r r r A Nobel Achievement: OSA’s Prize-Winning Members r r r

Since OSA’s founding in 1916, optics and photonics have had a profound impact on everyday life. OSA is proud of the contributions of its Nobel Prize-winning members.