Thomas Baer, executive director of the Stanford Photonics Research Center at Stanford University, was elected 2007 vice president of the Optical Society of America (OSA) at its 90th annual meeting, held this week in Rochester. Also elected were new directors-at-large Thomas Elsässer, a researcher with the Max-Born Institut, Germany; Lenore McMackin, director of optical engineering at nLine Corp. of Austin, Texas; and Philip Russell, director of the third division at the Max Planck Research Group at the Institute of Optics, Information and Photonics, University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany. As vice president, Baer makes a four-year commitment to OSA’s board of directors and will automatically become president-elect in 2008, then president in 2009. The new directors-at-large will serve three-year terms. Baer has been an OSA member since 1975. He is a member of OSA’s strategic planning committee and has been general chair of the Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics (CLEO), a co-chair of the OSA annual meeting and a member of OSA's board of directors. He has also been a division chair of OSA’s Quantum Electronics and Optics in Biology and Medicine divisions. Baer has held prestigious positions in industry and academia. After doing post-graduate work at the Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics (JILA), he was a vice president of research and a fellow at Spectra-Physics (now a division of Newport Corp.), where he developed an interest in biophotonics. He then joined Biometric Imaging (BMI), a Mountain View, Calif., medical device company, where he lead an interdisciplinary design group that developed scanning laser instruments used in diagnostic tests for bone marrow transplant therapy and immune system monitoring in AIDS patients. He then launched Arcturus Bioscience, a Mountain View company involved in microgenomics, precise molecular analysis of microscopic tissue samples. Baer holds 58 US patents, is an alumnus of Harvard Business School, and has recevied several industry awards for design innovation. He is a fellow of OSA and the American Association for the Advancement of Science and serves on visiting committees and advisory groups with the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the National Institutes of Health and the Physical Sciences Div. of the University of Chicago, where he earned his PhD. "Thomas Baer has consistently participated with a high level of energy and innovation as an OSA volunteer," said Elizabeth Rogan, OSA’s executive director. "Welcoming him now as vice president and then president of the society is perfect timing as we implement the many strategic goals he has helped design." Along with Baer, the new directors-at-large will be inducted on Jan. 2. They will replace three outgoing members of OSA's board of directors. For more information, visit: www.osa.org