OSA Senior Member Series: Ignacio E. Olivares
Ignacio E. Olivares received his Bachelor's and Master’s degrees, both in Physics from the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, where his M.Sc. thesis consisted of the constructing a ruby laser from scratch. As part of obtaining his Dr. rer. nat. degree at the Fakultät für Physik und Astronomie, Ruhr Universität Bochum in West Germany, Dr. Olivares installed a complete Thomson scattering experiment in a dense plasma produced in a Gas liner Pinch using a ruby laser.
Since then, Dr. Olivares has successfully installed a tunable laser laboratory for demonstration of lithium laser isotopic separation at the Chilean Nuclear Energy Commission, demonstrated the lithium isotope separation using a tunable diode laser, and in 2006, constructed a magneto-optical trap at the University of Santiago de Chile, which showed the trapping and cooling of rubidium atoms.
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Career Growth
If your ten-years-younger self was looking at your career now, what would he/she be most surprised by? In other words, what paths have you traveled on your career journey that came as a surprise or were unexpected?
An important unexpected path in my career was teaching of experimental courses mainly optics at an undergraduate level and laser spectroscopy at graduate level. My career changed from a plasma physicist in Germany, to a laser spectroscopy physicist at the Chilean Nuclear Energy Commission (no teaching) and to a professor at the University of Santiago de Chile. A highlight in my career was meeting and talk with Professor Charles Townes in an OSA conference. Other important moments was talking to Norman Ramsey in a Conference in Chile and to Professor Ted Hänsch in Germany.
Networking
What professional resources do you rely on to stay active and engaged with your field? (e.g., Optical Society meetings, networking events, webinars, etc.), and how has networking changed for you since you first began your career?
The most important resources are the reading of articles, purchase of state of the art instruments and parts, reading OPN, and participating in few Optical Society Meetings.
My network was changing from my team in plasma physics in Germany to a reduced network from authors in lasers and laser spectroscopy.
Mentoring
What is one piece of advice that you wish you were given as a student/early in your career?
The main advice is to focus on basic physics to understand experiments and instrumentation. Also to read physics and optics new advances as in OPN, Scientific American, Physics Today or other resources. Mainly that they are interested in the work of other students and researchers in conferences or seminars.
What have you learned by being a mentor to others, and what have you learned from mentors who helped shepherd your career?
Mentoring other students I learned to teach optics and physics. From my mentors I learned to put hands on experiments, to analyze experimental situations, to understand articles and to find the story on the work we were doing.
Success
What habits do you frequently rely on that help you to succeed? (e.g., meditation, organizational apps, asking for help, etc.)
I try to organize my work, to ask for help if needed, to search on the web for details, I look for state of the art parts, as possible new if I am trying to solve a complex experimental situation.
Dream Big
If you weren’t in the sciences, what would be your dream career (e.g., pastry chef, fighter pilot, etc.)?
Before I studied physics I was thinking in being architect. It was a dream career that included mainly painting and art. I like to work with my hands and I try to do so when I am in the lab, but not enough as I only like to write programs with matlab to solve simple problems including making diagrams.
Currently, an Associated Professor at the University of Santiago of Chile and a member of the Optical Society of America, Dr. Olivares is the author of several scientific articles on plasma spectroscopy, doppler free laser spectroscopy, and separation of lithium isotopes. His main skills are related to optical engineering and design of electro optical instrumentation including laser diagnostics and laser cavities.
The opinions expressed in the book review section are those of the reviewer and do not necessarily reflect those of OPN or OSA.
