Seminar by Prof. Elsa Garmire

Location:  to be updated, Time: 11:00 am-1:00 pm, June 8,  2007

A Charles Townes Legacy

Elsa Garmire

Sydney E. Junkins Professor of Engineering Sciences

Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, 03755

I was a PhD student of Charlie’s in physics at MIT from 1961-1965 -- an exciting time, just after the ruby and HeNe lasers were demonstrated.  Townes received the Nobel Prize while I was still a graduate student. My experimental PhD research used the second commercially sold ruby laser.  I was also the first woman student of Charlie that received a PhD. 

I am a legacy of Charles Townes, and worked with him on some of the only scientific research he carried out with lasers.  After I graduated and he moved to U. C. Berkeley, Townes’ interests switched to astronomy.  I stayed in the laser field, however, and produced a cadre of MS and PhD graduates who have continued to advance the field of lasers and photonics.  These students are also the Townes legacy – his “grand-students,” Several of these are also professors producing their own PhD graduates – his “great-grand students.”

I will describe how Townes’ laser grew from an idea in a scientist’s head to a crucial technology that underlies today’s technological world.  The laser was a truly extraordinary idea.   I will also tell something of my own story, as one of the few women in my field.  It has been exciting and rewarding, but has occasionally held challenges that are rarely experienced by men.

Elsa Garmire is Sydney E. Junkins Professor of Engineering Sciences at Dartmouth College, where she came in 1995 and served for two years as Dean of Engineering.   She has been a researcher in lasers and optics for more than 30 years, and is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, as well as fellow of IEEE, OSA, APS and SWE.  In 1993 she served as president of the Optical Society of America.  From 1974-1995 she was at University of Southern California, where she was Director of the Center for Laser Studies for 10 years and also became William Hogue Professor of Electrical Engineering.  She has authored more than 200 journal papers and received 9 patents for work undertaken with 34 graduate students and 33 post-docs and visiting scientists.  She received her A. B. in Physics from Harvard, her Ph.D. in Physics from M. I. T., and did post-doctoral work at Caltech.

For more information, please contact us by zge@mail.ucf.edu