July 23, 2008--The Russian Academy of Sciences (Moscow, Russia) has elected Roger Stolen, a distinguished visiting professor in materials science and engineering at Clemson University (Clemson, SC), as a foreign member.
Stolen is a pioneer in the field of optics and is a faculty member of Clemson's Center for Optical Materials Science and Engineering Technologies (COMSET). He studies new optical materials that have application in the fields of telecommunications, defense, sensing, and displays.
Stolen worked for Bell Labs for 30 years and was part of the team that first observed optical solitons (ultrashort pulses that travel long distances without dispersion, due to their nonlinear interactions with the surrounding optical material). Soliton properties of optical pulses play an important role in modern high-capacity optical communication systems. Since 1971, he has been involved in most aspects of fiber-optics research, especially nonlinear fiber optics, fiber measurements, novel fibers, and fiber components; his name is associated with many aspects and uses of Raman effects, from scattering in fiber, to ring and fiber lasers, to amplification, to spectroscopy. He is a retired professor of electrical engineering at Virginia Tech and joined COMSET in April 2006.
In 1990, Stolen was awarded the Optical Society of America's (OSA's) R.W. Wood Prize in recognition of pioneering studies in optical fibers, and in 2005 he received the Institute of Electrical Engineers/OSA John Tyndall Award for contributions that include the identification and understanding of the alteration in frequency and in the phase of light passing through a transparent optical fiber.
The Russian Academy of Sciences was established in 1724 and is recognized not only as the supreme scientific institution in Russia but as one of the most successful science academies in the world. Many of its members have made invaluable contributions to world science.
"This membership gives Roger Stolen, and therefore the Clemson optics community, the opportunity to collaborate with some of the most brilliant minds in the world in the field of optics," said Chris Przirembel, vice president for research and economic development at Clemson.