Four OSA Fellows Elected to American Academy of Arts and Sciences

WASHINGTON - Four Fellows of The Optical Society (OSA), including two former OSA presidents, have been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. The honor is in recognition of their contributions to physics and engineering sciences and technologies. They are among 252 new members, scientists, scholars, artists and leaders in the public, non-profit and private sectors.

The OSA Fellows elected to the American Academy of Arts and Science in 2021:

• Robert L. Byer is the William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor in the School of Humanities and Science in the Department of Applied Physics at Stanford University, USA. He has conducted research and taught classes in lasers and nonlinear optics there since 1969. He has made major contributions to laser science and technology, including demonstrating the first tunable visible parametric oscillator, developing the Q-switched unstable resonator Nd:YAG laser, remote sensing using tunable infrared sources, and precision spectroscopy using Coherent Anti Stokes Raman Scattering (CARS). Byer's ongoing research includes developing nonlinear optical materials and laser diode pumped solid-state laser sources for applications to gravitational wave detection and to laser particle acceleration. He is a Fellow of OSA, IEEE, APS, AAAS and IEEE/LEOS. In 1994, Byer served as OSA President.
• Hui Cao is the John C. Malone Professor of Applied Physics and of Physics and a professor of Electrical Engineering at Yale University. She received her Ph.D. degree in Applied Physics from Stanford University in 1997. Prior to joining the Yale faculty in 2008, she was on the faculty of Northwestern University from 1997 to 2007. Her technical interests and activities are in the areas of mesoscopic physics, complex photonic materials and devices, nanophotonics, and biophotonics. She authored or co-authored one monograph, twelve book chapters, seven review articles and 250 journal papers. She is a Fellow of the APS, OSA, AAAS.
• Anthony M. Johnson is the director of the Center for Advanced Study in Photonics Research (CASP) and professor in the Department of Physics and the Department of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. He spent 14 years conducting research at AT&T Bell Laboratories in Holmdel, New Jersey after receiving a BS in Physics from Polytechnic Institute of New York in 1975 and a PhD in Physics in 1981 from the City College of New York. His research has been in the general area of ultrafast optics and optoelectronics. Johnson was chairperson and distinguished professor in the department of physics at New Jersey Institute of Technology from 1995-2003. He is a fellow of OSA, APS, IEEE, AAAS and the National Society of Black Physicists. In 2002, Johnson served as OSA President.
• Mordechai Segev is the Robert J. Shillman Distinguished Professor of Physics at the Technion, Israel. He received his BSc and Ph.D. from the Technion in 1985 and 1990. After receiving his postdoc at Caltech, he moved to Princeton, eventually being appointed Distinguished Professor in 1999. He later returned to Israel, where he was named a Distinguished Professor in 2009. Segev's interests are mainly in nonlinear optics, photonics, solitons, sub-wavelength imaging, lasers, quantum simulators and quantum electronics. He has won the Quantum Electronics Prize of the European Physics Society and the Arthur Schawlow Prize of the American Physical Society, and OSA's Max Born Award. He was elected a Fellow of OSA in 1997.

According to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, "We recognize individuals who use their talents and their influence to confront today's challenges, to lift our spirits through the arts, and to help shape our collective future."

For a complete list of this year's members and fellows of the Academy, visit the American Academy of Arts and Sciences website.