Hui Cao

Yale University
Professor of Applied Physics and Physics
E-mail: hui.cao@yale.edu
Website

Research Areas:
Random Lasers, Mesoscopic Transport of Photons, Semiconductor Microcavity Lasers, Ultraviolet Photonic Crystals.

Selected Career Highlights:
Ph.D. Stanford University, 1997. Fellow of American Physical Society (2007), Fellow of Optical Society of America (2007), Maria Goeppert-Mayer Award from American Physical Society (2006), Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel Research Award from Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (2005), Outstanding Young Researcher Award from Overseas Chinese Physics Association (2004), National Science Foundation CAREER Award (2001), Alfred P. Sloan Fellow (2000), David and Lucile Packard Fellow (1999).

Anthony Johnson

University of Maryland Baltimore County
Professor of Physics
Professor of Computer Science & Electrical Engineering
Director, Center for Advanced Studies in Photonics Research
Email: amj@umbc.edu
Website

Research Areas:
Ultrafast photophysics and nonlinear optical properties of bulk, nanostructured and quantum well semiconductor structures, ultrashort pulse propagation in fibers and high-speed lightwave systems.

Selected Career Highlights:
Ph.D., City College of NY with fellowship support from Bell Laboratories, 1981. Fellow of the AAAS (1996), APS (1995), IEEE (2000), National Society of Black Physicists (1992) and OSA (1991). Distinguished Member of Technical Staff at Bell Laboratories and Chair of the Physics Department at New Jersey Institute of Technology (1995-2003). 1990 Program Co-Chair and 1992 General Co-Chair of CLEO. Editor-in-Chief of Optics Letters (1995-2001) and 2002 President of the OSA. Member, APS DLS Executive Committee (11-14), APS Executive Board (13-14), Founding Editorial Board Member of Physical Review X (11-18), Chair of the APS Bridge Program’s National Advisory Board (15-18) and member of the APS Nominating Committee (16-18).

Luis Orozco

University of Maryland
Professor, Department of Physics
E-mail: lorozco@umd.edu

Research Areas:
Quantum Optics and Francium Spectroscopy

Career & Research Highlights:
Ph.D., University of Texas at Austin, 1987. Quantum Optics studies the coherence and statistical properties of light and how they change as it interacts with atoms. His experimental work is in Quantum Optics and Cavity Quantum Electrodynamics (QED). Francium Spectroscopy probes the structure of the heaviest alkali metal atom using laser light.

David Reitze

Executive Director
LIGO Laboratory
California Institute of Technology

Research Areas:
Gravitational-wave detection, gravitational-wave astrophysics, precision interferometry and measurement, high power continuous wave lasers, laser stabilization, design/construction/operation of the initial and Advanced LIGO and interferometers.

Selected Career Highlights:
Ph. D. in Physics University of Texas Austin (1990), Research Corporation Cottrell Scholar (1996), Fellow of the American Physical Society (2006), Fellow of the Optical Society of America (2015), National Academy of Sciences Award for Scientific Discovery (2017). LIGO Scientific Collaboration awards include the Special Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics (2016), Gruber Prize for Cosmology (2016), and the Princess Asturias Award for Technical and Scientific Achievement (2017).

Carlos Stroud

University of Rochester
Professor, Department of Physics
Professor, Institute of Optics
E-mail: stroud@optics.rochester.edu

Research Areas:
Quantum optics: quantum information theory, atomic physics, and nonlinear optics. Rydberg atomic electron wave packets; multilevel quantum logic; generation of quantum states of light via electromagnetically induced transparency; and entanglement and teleportation of macroscopic states of matter.

Selected Career Highlights:
A.B. degree in Physics and Mathematics from Centre College, Ph.D. in Physics from Washington University, 1969. He is currently Professor of Optics and Professor of Physics, and Director of the Center for Quantum Information, fellow of Optical Society of America and the American Physical Society, lectured in more than 75 different universities.

Antoinette (Toni) Taylor

Deputy Associate Director
Chemistry, Life & Earth Sciences
Los Alamos National Laboratory

Research Areas:
Ultrafast dynamical processes in complex and nanoscale materials, including spin-charge-lattice interactions in quantum materials, electromagnetic metamaterials, and the development of spatially and temporally local probes.

Selected Career Highlights:
Antoinette (Toni) Taylor is currently the Deputy Associate Director for Chemistry, Life and Earth Sciences at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), as well as the LANL Point of Contact for the Department of Energy, Basic Energy Sciences (DOE-BES) Division of Materials Science and Engineering. She received her B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in physics from Stanford University where she was a Hertz Foundation pre-doctoral and doctoral Fellow. At LANL, she has served as the Director of the Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies, a joint Sandia/LANL nanoscience center funded through DOE BES and as the Leader of the Materials Physics and Applications Division. Her research interests include ultrafast dynamical processes in complex and nanoscale materials, including spin-charge-lattice interactions in quantum materials, electromagnetic metamaterials, and the development of spatially and temporally local probes. Taylor is the author or co-author of over 350 peer-reviewed articles resulting from this research. In service of the American Physical Society (APS), Taylor has chaired the Division of Laser Science, the APS Laser Science Conference, the Frank Isakson Prize Committee and the Marie Goeppert-Mayer Award Committee. Currently, she is a member of the APS Panel on Public Affairs (POPA). More broadly in the scientific community, she has served as a Director-at-Large of the Optical Society of America (OSA), a topical editor of the Journal of the Optical Society B: Optical Physics, a member of the Solid State Sciences Committee, Board of Physics and Astronomy of the National Academies, chair of the Gordon Research Conference on Ultrafast Phenomena in Cooperative Systems, and chair of the OSA conferences on Ultrafast Phenomena and Nonlinear Optics. She is a Fellow of the American Physical Society, the Optical Society of America and American Association for the Advancement of Science, as well as a Fellow of Los Alamos National Laboratory. Taylor was awarded won the inaugural Los Alamos Fellow’s Prize for Outstanding Leadership in Science and Engineering.

Ron Walsworth

Harvard University
Senior Lecturer, Department of Physics
Senior Physicist, Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory

Research Areas:
Application of atomic physics techniques -- from astrophysics to nanoscience to biomedical imaging.

Selected Career Highlights:
B.S. in Physics, Duke University,1984, Ph.D. in Physics, Harvard University, 1991. Fellow of American Physical Society (2001). Francis Pipkin Award from American Physical Society (2005). Co-discoverer of the light storage technique using electromagnetically induced transparency. Development of astro-combs to aid discovery of Earth-like planets around other stars; precision spin measurements and magnetometry using Nitrogen Vacancy centers in diamond; precise tests of physical laws and symmetries using atomic clocks; and biomedical and materials science investigations using MRI of hyperpolarized noble gas and nanoparticles.