New SPIE Fellows Honored

Twenty-two new SPIE Fellow Members were welcomed into the SPIE fold at the Fellows Luncheon at SPIE Photonics West on Monday, 3 February, in San Francisco. The program also included an In Memoriam segment, recognizing Alexander J. Marker, research fellow emeritus at SCHOTT North America; Charles "Chuck" DeMund, who served on several Society committees, including many years as SPIE Treasurer, and two terms as SPIE President in 1973 and 1974; Ravindra "Ravi" Lal, a professor emeritus at Alabama A&M University; and Roland V. Shack, professor emeritus of optical sciences at University of Arizona's Optical Sciences Center and the recipient of the 1998 SPIE A.E. Conrady Award in Optical Engineering and the SPIE Gold Medal in 2004.

Prior to recognizing the 22 new Fellows, Stanford University's Gordon Wetzstein was honored for his 2020 SPIE Society Award, Early Career Achievement Award, Academic Focus.

Then Ursula Keller, SPIE Fellow and the 2020 recipient of the SPIE Gold Medal, gave the keynote with a talk entitled "Innovation in ultrafast or ultrafast innovation?" Her dynamic presentation gave an overview of a 30-decade pioneering career which has included innovations in ultrafast lasers, attosecond science, semi-conductor physics, and amplitude and phases sensitive measurement from the microwave to the optical domain.

Keller credited her successes to her interdisciplinary approach – spanning physics, electrical engineering, and chemistry – as well to the stellar institutes and organizations she has worked at: Stanford, AT&T Bell Labs, and ETH Zurich. She also happily acknowledged the substantial core funding she's received as a professor at ETH, and the serendipitous opportunities and supportive mentors she was lucky to have along the way. Now a long-time mentor herself, Keller has graduated more than 80 doctoral students. "It's often been about trying to solve a problem," she noted. "Being surrounded with great students and postdocs, you can do it all."