On this International Day of Women and Girls in Science, we honor all the women and girls who dare to innovate, create, and push boundaries. 🚀
Your work shapes tomorrow, keep discovering ✨🤍
@spie.org @optica.org
11.02.2026 18:49 — 👍 5 🔁 3 💬 0 📌 0
Not unicorns. Not once a year. Women in science — every day #11F #WomenInScience @11defebrero-es.bsky.social @io-csic.bsky.social @csic.es @spie.org @optica.org
11.02.2026 10:47 — 👍 6 🔁 3 💬 0 📌 0
A new #FollowingthePhotons podcast is live! Host @jmurphoton.bsky.social talks with Travis Wood, president of Lattice Materials, about the company's ever-advancing role in photonics, workplace culture, and the growing photonics hub in Montana. Check it out! --> bit.ly/3MBBDtR
11.02.2026 20:29 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 1
Midterm Report: Quantum Optics/ Quantum Information
Thoughts after ten of twenty classes
A (very nerdy) blog post about the course I'm teaching this term on Quantum Optics and Quantum Information, which just passed the halfway mark: open.substack.com/pub/chadorze...
06.02.2026 00:49 — 👍 10 🔁 3 💬 1 📌 0
Gladys Mae West obituary: mathematician who pioneered GPS technology
She made key contributions to US cold-war science despite facing huge barriers as a Black woman.
No joke: I got angry hate mail today for writing an obituary of a Black woman scientist—because the person felt she did didn’t deserve the recognition.
Which just makes me want to share it again: www.nature.com/articles/d41...
06.02.2026 09:09 — 👍 46773 🔁 19183 💬 1339 📌 784
U.S. government has lost more than 10,000 STEM Ph.D.s since Trump took office
A Science analysis reveals how many were fired, retired, or quit across 14 agencies
Incredible self own for the US. The damage being done to the US scientific enterprise is generational. We will look back on this as a tipping point where the US chose all on its own to stop leading the world in science.
www.science.org/content/arti...
28.01.2026 11:46 — 👍 1495 🔁 833 💬 82 📌 54
U.S. government has lost more than 10,000 STEM Ph.D.s since Trump took office
A Science analysis reveals how many were fired, retired, or quit across 14 agencies
The US government lost more than 10,000 STEM PhDs last year, according to an analysis by Science of newly released OPM data, with 11 departures for every hire. And many OPM calls "voluntary" separations were probably pushed. www.science.org/content/arti...
27.01.2026 01:28 — 👍 356 🔁 261 💬 16 📌 33
Laser Focus World's 2025 Innovators Awards ceremony...and yes, those are indeed handblown glass awards.
In case you (like me) missed our Innovators Awards out at Photonics West...congratulations again to our winners—and thanks @jmurphoton.bsky.social for stepping in for me (presenting OZ Optics with an award)!
23.01.2026 20:46 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
This line graph illustrates the percentage change in agency staff levels from the previous year for nine major U.S. federal scientific and health organizations between the fiscal years 2016 and 2025. The agencies tracked include the CDC, Department of Energy, EPA, FDA, NASA, NIH, NIST, NOAA, and NSF. For the majority of the timeline between 2016 and 2023, the agencies show relatively stable fluctuations, generally staying within a range of +5% to -5% change per year. However, there is a dramatic and uniform plummet starting in the 2024–25 period. Every agency depicted shows a sharp downward trajectory, with staffing losses ranging from approximately -15% to over -25%. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) shows the most significant decline, dropping to roughly -26%, while the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) shows the least severe but still substantial drop at approximately -15%.
This is the most astonishing graph of what the Trump regime has done to US science. They have destroyed the federal science workforce across the board. The negative impacts on Americans will be felt for generations, and the US might never be the same again.
www.nature.com/immersive/d4...
20.01.2026 22:53 — 👍 14463 🔁 8336 💬 91 📌 767
Our Director of Product Marketing, Cicely Rathmell, wrote for @laserfocusworld.bsky.social on why scaling is about connectivity, not just qubit count. It shows how Photonic’s Entanglement First™ architecture enables modular systems, with distributed entanglement foundational, not an afterthought.
21.01.2026 18:36 — 👍 1 🔁 1 💬 1 📌 0
Display from a laser casing manufacturer
Structured lasers, showing a grid, a bullseye and lines of various colors
3D printed representation of the first zernike polynomials, used in optical aberration theory
Fiber lasers modules on display
Every year the optical candy shop opens during @spie.org #photonicswest in San Francisco
🍭 😍 🌉🌉
Always a great occasion to meet old friends and let new generations of scientists shine and salivate before the display of optical technology — which often runs our daily lives in the background
20.01.2026 23:50 — 👍 2 🔁 2 💬 1 📌 0
