OSA Announces 2016 Speaker Series

The Optical Society (OSA) will be celebrating its 100th anniversary with a “Light the Future” speaker series throughout 2016.

Beginning on Feb. 9 at OSA’s Leadership Conference in Washington, D.C., the program will be featured at eight international events. Visionaries, futurists and Nobel Prize winners will offer a glimpse of the future of optics and photonics innovations.

“Science is the art of constant progress,” said Elizabeth Rogan, OSA CEO. “We ask new questions and seek new answers. The seminal moments of great breakthroughs are iconic – the invention of the laser, the debut of the Polaroid camera at an OSA meeting in 1947, Einstein’s Theory of Relativity. The ‘Light the Future’ series hosts thought leaders and noted luminaries in the field who will provide insight into the next century of the innovation for the science of light.”

Broadcast journalist Ira Flatow, host of Science Friday, will be the Feb. 9 Light the Future speaker. Others include Mary Lou Jepson, executive director of engineering for Facebook; Alan Willner, 2016 OSA president and OSA fellow; Ray Kurzweil, director of engineering for Google; and Nobel Laureate Steven Chu, former U.S. secretary of energy.

To see the full “Light the Future” schedule, please visit http://osa.org/100.