Steven A Newton
Steven A. Newton is presently serving in his second year as LEOS Secretary/Treasurer. He is manager of the Measurements & Sensors Department at Agilent Laboratories, the central research organization of Agilent Technologies. Separated from the Hewlett-Packard Company in 1999, Agilent is a diversified technology company focused on growth in communications, test and measurement, and the life sciences.
Steve Newton was born in Teaneck, New Jersey in 1954. He grew up in nearby Bergenfield, a New Jersey suburb about ten miles north of Manhattan, where he developed what would become life-long interests in science, music, and sports. He became particularly interested in astronomy, and while in high school attended college-level courses in the field at the Hayden Planetarium of the American Museum of Natural History in New York.
After high school, he continued his studies in astronomy and physics at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. He shifted his focus to laser physics after obtaining a job in a biophysics group led by Professors Norman Ford and Kenneth Langley. Here he performed research on laser light scattering from biological samples, which led to his first journal publications. While at UMass, he was also elected to membership in Phi Kappa Phi and Phi Beta Kappa, and received the Phi Kappa Phi Outstanding Scholarship Award. In 1976 he received his Bachelor of Science degree, summa cum laude, in physics.
Later that year, Steve's graduate career began with his enrollment in the Applied Physics Department at Stanford University. Initially, he worked as a research assistant under the direction of Prof. Rudolf Kompfner, with the goal of developing a novel laser scanning microscope for biological applications. With the unfortunate passing of Prof. Kompfner in late 1977 this project ended. However, Steve continued his course work, obtaining his M.S. degree in 1978. He then shifted his research focus to new areas by taking a job at Hewlett-Packard Laboratories in Palo Alto, California. Here, he worked as a part-time member of the technical staff for the next few years, working in a variety of research areas including optical design, metal vapor lasers, and optical storage.
Steve resumed his graduate research at Stanford in 1980 under the direction of Prof. C. Chapin Cutler in the fiber optics group headed by Prof. H. John Shaw. He considers himself fortunate to have been associated with the faculty and students in Prof. Shaw's group during this extremely exciting and creative period, when several pioneering contributions to early single-mode fiber components and applications were made. Several members of this group have since gone on to become recognized leaders in the fiber optics field. During this period Steve's research work involved fiber optic rotation sensors, single-mode fiber components, and fiber-optic signal processing devices. One of his papers on fiber signal processing earned the Best Paper award for fiber components at OFC'83. He completed his dissertation on "Optical Fiber Delay Line Signal Processing" in 1983 and received his Ph. D. in Applied Physics the following year.
In 1983, Dr. Newton became a full-time member of the technical staff at HP Labs. He was initially involved in work on integrated optics, fiber components and circuits, and lightwave measurements. He became known for his work on optical reflectometry, and has given numerous presentations and tutorials on the topic. From 1986-1995 he managed the Fiberoptic Measurements and Devices Group, whose work led directly to several award-winning lightwave measurement products. In 1995 he became manager of the Optical Communications & Measurements Department, whose research areas included high-speed optical interconnects, WDM technologies, lightwave measurements, and optical switching. He presently manages the Measurements & Sensors Department in Agilent Laboratories' new Measurement Research Laboratory. This department focuses on hardware and software technologies for electronic and optical measurements.
Dr. Newton has written over 60 journal and conference publications, and has been awarded 13 patents in the field of lightwave technology. He has served on 16 technical program committees for conferences such as the Conference on Optical Fiber Communications (OFC), the Symposium on Optical Fiber Measurements, the Conference on Optical Fiber Sensors (OFS), and the Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics (CLEO). He served for 3 years as chairman of the CLEO Subcommittee on Fiber Lasers, Amplifiers, & Sensors and served as CLEO's Technical Program Co-Chair in 2002. In 2004, he served as General Co-Chair of CLEO, and was designated as a Fellow of the IEEE for his contributions to optical reflectometry.
Steve and his wife Sharon live in Los Altos, California, with their eleven-year old twin sons David and Kevin. They enjoy spending time with their boys, as well as attending musical and sporting events when their children and their jobs allow them the time to do so.

Dr. Wayne V. Sorin
Wayne V. Sorin, Chief Scientist at Novera Optics, received his Ph. D. in Electrical En- gineering from Stanford University in 1986. He then spent over 14 years as a scientist in the area of fiber optics at Hewlett-Packard/Agilent Laboratories. During his time at HP Labs his primary efforts were focused on the company's Lightwave Test and Measurement business. His main area of contribution was in fiber optic based interferometers and was a pioneer in the development of the first commercial Optical Low-Coherence Reflectometer. In February 2000 he joined Novera Optics, Inc. as Chief Scientist where he worked in the area of acousto-optic interactions within optical fibers. Dr. Sorin is an inventor on 60 patents and is an author on over 60 journal and conference papers. He is a contributing editor for the textbook "Fiber Optic Test and Measurement" (Prentice Hall, 1997) and has spent 4 years on the part-time faculty of San Jose State University where he taught a senior level course on fiber optics. Dr. Sorin has also spent 4 years as an Associate Editor for the IEEE journal "Photonics Technology Letters." Recently he served as General Co-Chair for OFC'2002 (Optical Fiber Communications conference). In November 2003, he was elected to serve on the Board of Governors for the IEEE Lasers and Electro-Optics Society (LEOS). Dr. Sorin is a Fellow of the IEEE.
Although presently not active in these areas, Dr. Sorin still maintains an interest in fiber optic based interferometric measurement techniques for both communication and sensor applications. Currently he is working in the area of low-cost WDM-PON (Wavelength Division Multiplexed - Passive Optical Networks) systems to provide high bandwidth access for last mile applications.
"As a newly elected BoG member I am currently trying to get up to speed on the many complex issues related to our society. One of my long term goals will be to try to increase the value of a membership in IEEE-LEOS. I believe this will be very important in maintaining the health of our society. As a member of the LEOS Long Range Planning committee one of my interests is investigating the feasibility of the "Open Access" concept for technical publications. The long term goal of this concept is to make all IEEE technical publications freely available, through the internet, to all who are interested. The main challenge for this will be in finding a way to make the concept financially feasible."

Dr. A. Catrina Bryce
Catrina Bryce was born in Glasgow in 1956. She studied Physics at the University of Glasgow and graduated with a BSc in 1978. She then went to the University of Dundee and completed an MSc in amorphous materials in 1979. She returned to the Physics Department at Glasgow to work in research on phonon scattering in glasses. After completing her PhD work in 1982 she left research to do teacher training and taught physics in high school for two years. The two years were enough for her to realise that she did not enjoy teaching in high school and in 1985 she joined the MBE research group in the Department of Electronics and Electrical Engineering at the University of Glasgow as a post doctoral research assistant. In 1987 she moved to join the Optoelectronics Research Group where her first project was on nonlinear switching in stress induced coupled GaAs/AlGaAs waveguides. She worked as a research assistant on various projects researching waveguide modulators, high power lasers and quantum well intermixing. In 1992 she was appointed to the post of research technologist and was promoted to the post of Senior Research Technologist in 1997.
Her main research interests are based on III-V semiconductor monolithic integration of photonic devices using quantum well intermixing and, more recently quantum dot intermixing. She has been involved in the development of several intermixing techniques, the most recent of which has formed the base technology for a spin out company (Intense Photonics Ltd). Her other research interests include high power lasers and the use of intermixing to engineer the cavity to produce high powers with a single transverse mode beam. She is also working on modelocked lasers and their use as THz radiation sources.
She was a founding member of the Scottish Chapter of LEOS and currently she is the chair of the Chapter. She has served on the Semiconductor Lasers Technical Committee for the last three years. She is also on the Semiconductor Laser Technical subcommittee for the LEOS meeting. She was on the local organising committee for LEOS 2002 as well as technical committee chair for WFOPC 2002 Currently she is the Local Arrangements Chair for IPRM 2005 which will be held in Glasgow in May next year.