Washington, DC--The Optical Society (OSA) recently announced the recipients of the first annual Outstanding Young Professional Recognition, an honor that acknowledges significant contributions made by an OSA Young Professional through volunteer activities completed as part of the Young Professionals Program.
Giovanni Volpe, Bilkent University (Ankara, Turkey), garnered a 2012 Outstanding Young Professional honor. An active OSA member for many years—both as a student and a young professional—Volpe helped establish an OSA Student Chapter at the Institut de Ciencies Fotoniques in Barcelona, Spain; was a founding member of the International OSA Network of Students (IONS); represented OSA on the American Institute of Physics (AIP) Science Writing Committee; serves on the OSA Board of Meetings; and edits OSA’s Optics & Photonics Focus.
The second 2012 Outstanding Young Professional honoree, Laura Waller, Princeton University (Princeton, NJ), has also been active in OSA as a student and post-graduation. She was president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology OSA Student Chapter; has served as a reviewer on several OSA journals; is a founder of an annual optics outreach event as part of the Cambridge Science Festival; and served as part of AIP’s “Adopt a Physicist” program to promote science to high school students.
Volpe and Waller will be recognized during OSA’s 2012 Winter Leadership Meeting in Washington, DC, this week. Candidates are self-nominated, and must have been active in the Young Professionals Program for at least one year and have two references submit endorsements. Winners are chosen by the Awards and Grants Subcommittee of the OSA Member and Education Services Council.
The Young Professionals program has rapidly grown from a small handful of individuals at its start in 2008 to hundreds of active participants worldwide, says OSA CEO Elizabeth Rogan. The program matches members who are in the early years of their careers with volunteer activities that align with their areas of interest. These placements provide valuable, career-building experiences and facilitate networking with top researchers and business leaders from around the world.
For more information, please visit http://www.osa.org/Communities/Young_Professionals/default.aspx.
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