Photonics for a Better World

Hyperspectral imaging, like many other of today's technologies, is moving into numerous commercial markets after developing and maturing in the defense sector. While still having a strong presence in defense applications, the technology is now used in chemical detection, food quality assurance and inspection, vegetation monitoring, and plant phenotyping, among others. For more than 20 years, advances in spectral imaging have been on display at SPIE Defense + Commercial Sensing (DCS). The applications and capabilities of the technology have grown along with the conferences and exhibition at SPIE DCS. The ability to see more than what is visible to the human eye has always been one of the goals of optical engineers. With hyperspectral imaging they have been able to achieve just that. By accessing the entire electromagnetic spectrum, the sensors are able to image a specific wavelength range, or spectral band, and combine images of multiple bands into one 3D scene. Through...

What is it like for women pursuing careers in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) fields? Clearly, the experience is different for women and for men. Salary data show global pay disparities : across the world, women in photonics, for example, earn less than men. It isn’t a quality issue. The Association of Women in Science reports that awards, patents, and funding opportunities for women are proportionately fewer -- but at the same time, women publish in higher percentages and in journals with higher impact factors, and startups with women as top executives are more successful. Noting that "the problem is not the lack of female talent," the  European Commission has quantified what it calls a “leaky pipeline.” In 2006, for example, women accounted for 45% of PhD graduates but in the same year, 82% of the most senior researchers were men and just 18% women. In the United States, women are 50% of the total workforce but 24% of the STEM wor...