Staff Report
UNM Research Professor Arthur H. Guenther has been asked by the International Commission for Optics to focus his research at the University's Center for High Technology Materials on starting an optics enterprise in Africa.
Guenther, who had just finished his three-year term as president of the optics commission when the request to refocus his research was made, attended the sixth Annual African Laser, Atomic, Molecular and Optical Sciences Network Symposium in Tunis, Tunisia recently. There, Guenther gave a lecture titled "Comprehensive Photonics Education Program 'The Albuquerque Model'" to representatives from more than 30 nations, 16 of which were African.
Guenther said that the optics education programs in Albuquerque continue to receive both national and international recognition.
UNM's Center for High Technology Materials mission, according to its Web site, is "one of research and education at the boundaries of two disciplines. The first, optoelectronics, unites optics and electronics, and focuses on semiconductor laser sources, optical modulators, detectors and optical fibers. The second, microelectronics, applies semiconductor technology to the fabrication of electronic and optoelectronic devices for information and control applications."
Currently Guenther teaches about optics at UNM as a research professor of electrical and computer engineering, physics and astronomy.
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Previously, Guenther worked as the first legislated science adviser to several New Mexico governors and as chief scientist of the Air Force Weapons Laboratory. He was also one of four speakers in October at the White House Conference on Optics and Photonics assembled by President Bush's science adviser, Jack Marburger.
Guenther also participated as an adviser in the formation of optics clusters and pioneered laser activities and directed energy.
