Hello, I’m Gordon Day, and this year it’s my privilege to serve you as President of LEOS. My other job is with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) where we work to provide measurement technology, standards, and traceability for the optoelectronics industry.
But who are we, the members of LEOS? For starters, most of us are members of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), the largest professional society in the world, with over 300,000 members scattered around every continent but Antarctica. (There may even be a few IEEE members in Antarctica from time to time, but we don’t usually see their mailing addresses.) We are one of the 36 technical societies that share the IEEE umbrella, each of which focuses on a particular area of engineering technology. Our mission statement says that we “advance the interests of [our] members and the laser, optoelectronics, and photonics professional community.” (see the back page of this newsletter for our complete mission statement)
If you’re already a member, you know all of that. If you’re not a member, please keep reading, I’ve got an outstanding deal for you!
Thanks to a professionally conducted survey of our members, we now know quite a bit about ourselves and why we choose to be LEOS members.
There were over 7000 of us at the end of 1999. About 56% of us live in North America; 20% live in the Asia-Pacific region; 22% live in Europe, Africa, and the Mid-East. LEOS is a global organization!
Most of us are well educated, or soon will be. 95% of us hold at least a bachelor’s degree and 61% of us have Ph.D. degrees. 15% of us are students in colleges and universities (lots of our student members already have bachelor’s degrees).
Many of us have long experience in the field (over 30% have >20 years), but many others entered the field recently (22% within the past 4 years). 43% of us work for colleges or universities, 37% in private industry, and 12% for government or government contractors.
In many respects, we are diverse. What, then, brings us together in LEOS?
For those of us who are already IEEE members and work in this field, it’s an easy decision. The $18 additional fee for LEOS membership brings benefits that far outweigh the cost.
Over 94% of us told the survey-takers that LEOS publications are important; 77% said “very important!" And well we might. According to Science Citation Index, our flagship journal, the Journal of Quantum Electronics, has one of the highest citation rates of all journals in electronics. And our other journals, Photonics Technology Letters, the Journal of Lightwave Technology (which we co-publish) and the Journal of Selected Topics in Quantum Electronics, are not far behind. LEOS members may subscribe to the printed versions of these journals at very modest rates. On top of that, all LEOS members receive an annual CD-ROM with the full text of all our journals for the year, at no extra charge. Best yet, members now have full online access to all of our journals, as they are published. Online access is free with membership!
What a deal for $18! But that’s not all that membership brings us.
Over 83% of us told the survey-takers that LEOS-sponsored conferences are important. And well we might. LEOS was a co-founder of the annual Optical Fiber Communications Conference, and continues to own the conference in a partnership with the IEEE Communications Society and the Optical Society of America. If you are interested in optical communications and are not participating in OFC, give it a try. It’s growing dramatically. The technical sessions are outstanding and the exhibition is the largest in the field. New to the field? Try the short courses and tutorial sessions. If communications is not your specialty, try the annual Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics. CLEO was also co-founded by LEOS and is now owned in partnership with OSA and APS. There you’ll also find outstanding technical sessions, a large exhibition, and great educational opportunities. Or try the LEOS Summer Topicals-an annual series of collocated meetings that focus on emerging technologies. Or, perhaps best of all, try the LEOS Annual Meeting. In November, over 800 of us gathered in San Francisco for the 1999 Annual Meeting, a week of concentrated education, business meetings, and catching up on the activities of friends and colleagues. LEOS members benefit from reduced registration fees for all of these conferences.
I could go on about member benefits. There is the free newsletter. There are chapter activities. There are educational opportunities (check out the experimental presentations on our web site). There are opportunities for professional growth through volunteer service.
But perhaps, most of all, we are LEOS members because we are a community. The community of professionals who work with lasers, optoelectronics and photonics. The community of engineers and scientists behind some of the most exciting new technologies of the latter 20th century and surely of the 21st century.
If you are interested in these fields and are not already a member, please consider joining us. If you are an IEEE member, it’s a modest investment with a great return. If you’re not already an IEEE member, consider joining IEEE and LEOS; the IEEE benefits are significant. Or, if you are a member of another qualifying society, join LEOS as an affiliate for $53. In all cases, we’ll welcome you to the community.