BELLINGHAM, WA--International optics and photonics society SPIE recently implemented a new membership designation for 2008 called “Senior Members” that has been bestowed on 20 SPIE members to honor their significant contributions to the optics and photonics community.
Contrary to the “Senior” title, these special SPIE members are by no means retired, but are honored for their generous, active, and ongoing contribution to the photonics industry. Unlike the SPIE Senior Fellows program, the SPIE Senior Member designation is not necessarily linked to scientific and technology achievement, but can also be linked to business-oriented, educational, or other service achievements in the photonics industry.
“Being designated as one of the first 20 SPIE Senior Members is an extreme honor,” said inaugural SPIE Senior Member Donn Silberman, founding director of The Optics Institute of Southern California (Aliso Viejo, CA) and Sr. applications and sales engineer at PI Physik Instrumente (Irvine, CA). “Doing something that I love to do--optics education, outreach and engineering--as a profession and a hobby is a great life.” Silberman has been very active in optics education (see www.laserfocusworld.com/articles/300610), and added, “To be recognized by SPIE is not only icing on the cake, but will enable me to continue to grow (maybe at a faster rate) the various projects and programs I am affiliated with.”
This is the first year the SPIE Board of Directors has made selections for the program, and 20 inaugural Senior Members were selected. “The Senior Members program provides important recognition of the many long-time volunteers that make SPIE events and activities the success they are today, as well as others who have helped our industry overall,” said 2008 SPIE president Kevin Harding. “SPIE is a member-driven organization that relies on such people to achieve the mission of the Society. By distinguishing these important contributions to the optics and photonics community, we recognize the hard work that has grown our industry into a wide-reaching and influential discipline.”
A minimum of five years of continuous regular SPIE membership or active volunteerism is required for nomination as a Senior Member. Senior Members also have at least 10 years of significant professional experience and achievement in industry or academia. For more information on the designation, visit http://spie.org/seniormember. And for a complete list of the 20 inaugural members, visit http://spie.org/x31688.xml.
--Gail Overton