Michael Duncan is currently a Senior Science Advisor at the Optical Society (OSA), a position he has held since January, 2014. He provides strategic direction on the Society’s scientific programming, leveraging his technical expertise to help expand OSA programs and activities, with a specific focus on the Society’s conventions and meetings portfolio. Before that, he worked for more than 32 years as an optical physicist for the Navy. He worked at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory for most of his career and performed research on lasers, nonlinear optics, and optical reconnaissance systems. He also worked the Office of Naval Research where he helped direct a portfolio of basic and applied research for the Navy in the area of IR and Electro-optic sensors.
Michael received his B.S. in Physics from Rice University. He received his Master’s and Ph.D. degrees from the Applied Physics Department at Stanford University and was an NRL-NRL Postdoctoral Fellow in 1980-1981. Michael is a Fellow of OSA, and provided volunteer support on numerous OSA committees throughout his career. He served as the second editor of Optics Express and served as the Chair of the OSA Board of Editors. He has also worked with the American Institute of Physics (AIP) for many years and is currently serving as the OSA appointed member on the AIP Board of Directors. He was elected to the position of Treasurer on the AIP Board in 2015.
Michael has authored over 65 technical papers and two book chapters on a variety of subjects, and has been granted 4 patents. He has served on a number of advisory committees for the U.S. Government and has presented well over a hundred seminars and technical papers, both invited and contributed, at laboratories, universities, and technical conferences.