General Chair: Michael Lander

Mike is Senior Scientist at Skyward Ltd, located in Dayton, Ohio. Mike has been active in the field of optics and photonics for over 37 years. Mike has significant experience in laser physics specializing in high power (above 100KW) laser systems development, optical system design, electro-optical sensing solutions, laser-materials interaction testing and characterization, and laser-based additive manufacturing. Mike has developed and enhanced multiple high power laser systems applied to laser-materials interaction testing, and laser-systems engagement testing. Mike has developed related testing methods, laboratory and range laser safety practices, materials response sensing systems, and commercial additive manufacturing products relating to laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) processing and process monitoring. Mike’s most recent work at Skyward Ltd involves fire protection for air and ground vehicles, and interaction with Skyward’s multi-disciplined engineering and scientific teams dedicated to scanning and reverse engineering for additive manufacturing design, advanced modeling and simulation, machine learning, and ordinance range testing activities.

Mike received the BS in Physics from Earlham College in 1985 and the MS in Electro-Optics from the University of Dayton in 1987.

Optics Chair: John Taranto

John Taranto received his B.S. in physics and his M.S. in electro-optical engineering from the University of Dayton and has been working in the photonics industry for more than 35 years. After graduating, John worked for several government contractors. He was part of a team that built a 100+kW quasi-CW CO2 laser at the Laser Hardened Materials Evaluation Laboratory (LHMEL) facility at Wright-Paterson Air Force Base, OH. John joined Thorlabs in 1994 as a design engineer and has since enjoyed various roles within the organization. 

At Thorlabs, John had been the leader of the Fiber Optic Business Unit, after which he took on a role within the Advanced Systems Technology Group, focusing his efforts on adaptive optics-based imaging systems. When Thorlabs teamed with Boston Micromachines Corporation (BMC) to help offer their advanced MEMS-based deformable mirrors to the photonics research community, John developed algorithms that integrated BMC’s MEMS-DMs with a Shack-Hartman wavefront sensor into fully functional and affordable Adaptive Optics kits. Additionally, John integrated a MEMS-DM into a 2-photon microscope kit and supported a research project at Boston University where he was involved with the design and implementation of MEMs-DM based adaptive optics multiphoton microscope system. John has been with the Vytran division of Thorlabs since January 2019, after the acquisition of the fiber inspection product line from Norland Products, where he is focusing on technologies and algorithm development for fiber optic end face inspection and glass processing. 

Lasers Chair: Rick Neff

Hi I’m Rick Neff. I am originally from Philadelphia and have a Mechanical Engineering Degree from Lehigh University. I started my career crisscrossing the country and lived in San Francisco, L.A., Buffalo, Rochester and Boston before settling in Cincinnati in 1992. Working for three Fortune 500 companies and a family owned machine tool company brought lessons about helping customers solve their problems with technology solutions in capital equipment or aerospace components. In 2019 I started a consulting business to capitalize on my expertise in advanced manufacturing and marketing. I have a great group of customers like Thermwood Corporation, OpenAdditive, ASME and Firehawk Aerospace. Speaking at conferences is one of the best ways to share knowledge with a larger audience.

Sensors Chair: John Middendorf

Dr. John Middendorf, Director of Additive Manufacturing – Dr. Middendorf has been developing his own Laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) machines since July 2014 and currently leads the additive manufacturing division at the Center for Design and Manufacturing Excellence at The Ohio State University.  John was the technical leader behind the development of the Open Additive (OA) brand, selling the PANDA LPBF machines and AMSENSE sensor suite, and in his past has develop several other innovations such as Selective Laser Ablation & Melting (SLAM) and Graded Alloy Processing (GAP).