At the time of writing this President’s Message, I had the pleasure of watching the launch of NASA’s Artemis II mission. It is difficult to determine exactly how far away I was, but I could see the launch pad and the moment of liftoff. The excitement from the crowd was contagious. Hundreds of thousands of people had come to Florida’s Space Coast to witness this historic event: humans once again traveling toward the moon.
That sense of excitement and achievement feels very appropriate for our community. By the time this message is printed, we will have announced this year’s Optica award recipients, Fellows and Foundation prize winners—individuals whose contributions have helped advance science and technology in remarkable ways—and honored some of them. At the 2026 Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics (CLEO), we recognized Yoshihisa Yamamoto from NTT Research with the Charles Hard Townes Medal; Jelena Vučković of Stanford University with the R.W. Wood Prize; and Sergio Carbajo of the University of California, Los Angeles, and SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Stanford University, with the Adolph Lomb Medal. In addition to these awardees, we also recognized several of the 2026 Optica Fellows at CLEO. Although these recipients did not blast off to travel around the moon, they have contributed to the advancement of science, and their peers have recognized them for doing so.
Prior to CLEO, Optica held a two-day advocacy program with several members of the US Congress and representatives from a few of the US federal agencies in Washington, DC. The event brought together CEOs and senior leaders from more than 35 organizations who produce products and services for those in the quantum space to advocate for the reauthorization of the National Quantum Initiative (NQI) Act. The event featured cochairs of the Congressional Optics and Photonics Caucus (Sen. Steve Daines and Rep. Joe Morelle), staff from key Senate and House committees and cosponsors of the Reauthorization Act (Sen. Todd Young, Sen. Andy Kim and Sen. Marsha Blackburn). There was also a roundtable discussion with Executive branch officials, including Mark Clampin (NASA), James Kushmerick (NIST), Jason Boehm (NIST) and Tanner Crowder (Department of Energy).
Speaking of quantum, this month, the Optica Quantum 2.0 Conference and Exhibition, as well as the Quantum Industry Summit, will be co-located in Glasgow, UK. Quantum science and technology are increasingly serving as the backbone for numerous technology platforms. From space exploration to quantum innovation, our field continues to enable discoveries and technologies that once seemed out of reach. As Artemis II reminds us, progress begins with imagination and is made real through science and the people who keep pushing the boundaries of what is possible.
—Gisele Bennett, Optica President
