Photonics for a Better World

The second annual Peer Review Week spans 19-25 September 2016. This global event celebrates the vital role that peer review plays in achieving exceptional scientific quality. Recognition for Review is the theme for this year’s event, which is dedicated to recognizing contributions made by those participating in peer review activities ranging from conference submissions to publication and grant reviews. “Reviewers are the unsung heroes of scholarly journals," said Optical Engineering editor-in-chief Michael Eismann in his first editorial of 2016 . "Generally operating in anonymity, they ensure that published articles meet the journal’s standards of originality, significance, scientific accuracy, and professional quality.” In another editorial, " Four attributes of an excellent peer review ", Eismann defined how to ensure that peer review results in quality publications. The Peer Review Week event calendar includes a several webinars on variou...

Experts in STEM education (science, technology, education, and mathematics) point out that in teaching, the “how” of science is more important that the “what.” As Shannon Warren , director of a science education partnership grant program in Washington State, noted in a recent magazine feature, learning science means exploring and analyzing, not just memorizing facts and listening to lectures. The “why” is an equally key question, and one that evokes very personalized responses. Professor Jin Kang in his lab at Johns Hopkins University Take Jin Kang ’s story, for example. Twenty years ago, Kang was an undergraduate physics student discovering that while he found the theory behind optics and photonics interesting, what he really loved was building lasers and other optical devices. Kang is now a professor and the chair of the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at Johns Hopkins University. He conducts research in biophotonics, fiber optics, and optoelectronic ...