Philip H. Bucksbaum

2014 OSA President Philip Bucksbaum holds the Marguerite Blake Wilbur Chair in Natural Science at Stanford University. His research is in the areas of ultrafast, short wavelength, and high field laser-matter interactions.

Bucksbaum has been a member of the OSA since the early 1980’s. He has served the Society in several capacities: as QELS Program Co-chair (1997) and General Co-chair (1999); Chair of the Short Wavelength Topical Meeting (1992); frequent member of conference program committees; and as a member of the OSA Board of Directors (2006–2008).  

Bucksbaum received his A.B. degree in Physics from Harvard University in 1975, and his Ph.D. in Physics from the University of California at Berkeley in 1980.  Following a postdoctoral year at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, he joined the staff of Bell Telephone Laboratories in New Jersey, first as a postdoc at Holmdel, and later as a member of the technical staff at Murray Hill.  He was appointed Professor of Physics at the University of Michigan in 1990, where he became the Otto Laporte Collegiate Professor in 1998 and the Peter Franken University Professor in 2005.  At Michigan, Bucksbaum also was the Associate Director for Science at the Center for Ultrafast Optical Science, and the Director of the FOCUS Center, a National Science Foundation Physics Frontier Center.

In 2006, Bucksbaum moved to the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and Stanford University, and in 2009, he became the Marguerite Blake Wilbur Professor in Natural Science.  He has joint appointments in the Physics Department, the Applied Physics Department, and the SLAC Photon Sciences Department, and he served as Department Chair of Photon Science (2007–2010).  He is the Director of the Stanford PULSE Institute for Ultrafast Science, and he also directs the Chemical Sciences Research Division at SLAC.

Bucksbaum has more than 200 publications.  He has contributed to several areas of atomic physics and ultrafast science, including strong-field laser-atom interactions, Rydberg wave packets, ultrafast quantum control, and ultrafast X-ray physics.  Most recently, he has helped to pioneer ultrafast research at X-ray free electron lasers.  He is the founding and current editor of the AIP Virtual Journal of Ultrafast Science, and he has also served as a Laser Sciences Divisional Associate Editor for Physical Review Letters. He has been elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society as well as the OSA, and he was elected in 2004 to the National Academy of Sciences.  Other honors include Guggenheim and Miller Fellowships, and distinguished teaching and research awards.