OSA Announces Engineering Excellence Awards

The Optical Society of America recently announced the winners of its 2000 Engineering Excellence Awards, which are given for technical achievements in optical engineering.

Joseph Anello Jr, chief engineer of GN Nettest’s optical division in Utica, New York, was honored for being an “exemplary engineer who serves as a strong community advocate for engineering education, working with schools and businesses to increase student awareness in the profession, its importance, and the skills needed to succeed,” according to the citation.

Arne Erstling, director of engineering at SpectraSwitch in Santa Rosa, California, received his award for “creating from inception in just eighteen months an engineering department encompassing research and development, process, and manufacturing efforts that resulted in a groundbreaking telecommunications technology for the active/passive optical components industry.”

Andrew Tam, manager of exploratory magnetic recording at the IBM Almaden Research Center in San Jose, California, was recognized for “inventing, developing, and implementing novel laser processes for the manufacturing of modern disk-drive components, particularly laser zone texturing for disks and laser curvature adjust for magnetic head sliders.”

Judith Grenko, Robert Hartman, Leonard J.-P. Ketelsen, all of Lucent Technologies in Breinigsville, Pennsylvania, and Won Tsang, founder and CEO of Multiplex Inc in South Plainfield, New Jersey, shared an award for the “development of high-performance integrated multiple-quantum-well electro-absorption modulated distributed-feedback lasers, and associate epitaxial growth, fabrication, and characterization methodologies for highly reproducible manufacture.”