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Voice for Change
Alan Willner is the University of Southern California’s Steven & Kathryn Sample Chaired Professor of Engineering and a noted expert in optical communications, signal processing, networks and fiber optics. But it is his role as a passionate advocate for photonics that has been drawing recent notice. Willner was critical in driving the formation of the U.S. National Photonics Initiative (NPI).
I helped co-chair the committee that developed the 2012 National Academies’ report, “Optics and Photonics: Essential Technologies for our Nation,” also known as “Harnessing Light II.” Near the end of that group’s 18-month deliberations, the idea for a National Photonics Initiative emerged, and I was instantly drawn to it. The idea embodied the key issue with which we had struggled: Our field is a critical enabler of everyday lives and yet it is not necessarily viewed as crucial by key decision makers in government and industry. We need to change that.
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