Remembering David “Jack” Lund

A collection of memories from colleagues and friends

David “Jack” Lund was a well known and well loved member of our community who passed away recently. He had over 50 years of experience in laser bioeffects research and laser safety while working for the US Army Medical Research and Development command. His research and papers have been instrumental in formulating the safety guidelines in the ANSI and IEC laser safety standards. He was also a very active member of the ANSI committee and subcommittees. A full obituary can be read here Jack’s influence and accomplishments will not be forgotten. To honor his passing, some friends and colleagues of Jack have shared stories about their experiences with him.

From: Bruce E Stuck

Memory: As most know by now, David ‘Jack’ Lund passed away suddenly on December 23. Jack was a consistent contributor of new, laser bioeffects at past ILSC meetings.

I first met Jack in late November of 1969 when we both worked at the US Army Medical Department’s Joint Laser Safety Team at Frankford Arsenal in Philadelphia. Jack was both a highly valued colleague and personal friend (we car-pooled for several years). We shared the LIA-ILSC Wilkening Award presented at the 2013 ILSC. I highly valued his analytical skills and dedication to carefully examining all the data. His clarity of logic in discussions, thousands of Excel data plots and conclusions assisted the development of ‘results based’ laser exposure limits. Jack was a mentor to many and to me.

We moved our laser bioeffects group to San Francisco in 1974 and then to San Antonio in 1992. Although Jack retired from working for the Army Medical Department in 2006, he remained working in an emeritus status even when we moved the group to the US Army Institute of Surgical Research in 2010.

Jack was an exemplary scientist and his contributions to laser safety and hence, to the safe use lasers in all applications (worldwide) were truly exemplary. With sadness, Jack will be missed at this ILSC 2023. Nonetheless we shall remember his legacy and celebrate his contributions!

From: Richard C Hollins

I met Jack Lund in 1994, and he became one of my most valued mentors in laser bio-optics. He taught me a huge amount about the eye and the science under-pinning laser eye safety. Over several decades, he provided a treasured blend of education, advice, appraisal, encouragement, enthusiasm, and humour. He had high standards, he rarely overlooked anything, and he was always a pleasure to work with.

Jack made innumerable contributions to laser bio-physics. He performed many of the measurements that under-pin the exposure limits defined in international safety standards. His work included both pulsed and continuous lasers, covering a wide variety of wavelengths and durations. Throughout, he sought to understand the relevant injury processes. He designed and performed experiments, and he developed simple but effective physical models to understand the results. His breadth of vision enabled him to consider a huge body of experimental data from many different studies, and to propose an interpretation that made sense of everything. Jack’s work defined many of the scaling laws incorporated in laser safety standards.

Jack was a skilled experimentalist. The more difficult the task, the better he liked it. For example, his experiments using adaptive optics – both to improve the focus of laser light into the eye, and to improve diagnostic assessment – presented many difficult challenges that Jack overcame through insight and through sheer hard work. Decades of practical experience enabled him to produce meaningful results from innumerable difficult experiments.

I can’t do justice to Jack’s many contributions, but I’ll remember and appreciate the many things that I learned from him.

From: Benjamin Rockwell

These photos are from a series of workshops hosted by the Air Force research program looking at thresholds and mechanisms of retinal damage from ultrashort laser pulses. This research was sponsored from 19912001 by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR), and the workshops collected experts from an international set of collaborators to have an annual review and discuss relevant topics.

In the above photo from 1991, this was the initial Ultrashort Workshop and was hosted by Dr. Pat Roach (now the Chief Scientist of AFOSR) and included the following people from the laser safety community: Jack Lund (front row, forth from the left), Pat Roach, Bruce Stuck, David Sliney, Joe Zuclich, Randy Glickman, Myron Wolbarsht and John Marshall (all in this photo). There are also collaborators in the photo who are scientific experts from Harvard, Wellman Laboratories, Duke University and the University of Arizona.

In this second photo from the year 1995, this was the 5th Ultrashort Workshop and this photo includes Jack Lund (back row, second from left), Harry Zwick, Steve Schuschereba, Bruce Stuck, David Sliney, Clarence Cain, Joe Zuclich, Bob Thomas, Myron Wolbarsht, Cindy Toth, Paul Kennedy, David Stolarski, Gary Noojin, Dan Hammer and Ben Rockwell from the laser safety community, and others from Harvard, MIT, Wellman Laboratories, UT Medical Branch- Galveston, Florida International University, UT Health Science Center-San Antonio, Vanderbilt, Oregon Medical Laser Center and Luebeck, Germany.

Jack Lund was always a critical contributor to these workshops and was the go-to person for summarizing extensive data sets of relevant data and discussion of injury mechanisms. He was a insightful ambassador of the US Army Laser Bioeffects group and a collegial mentor to me and many other new to the community and his friendship will be sorely missed.

From: Jim Ness

When I first met Jack, it was during my interview for potential assignment to the Directed Energy Lab, Brooks AFB. I freely admitted knowing little about eyes other than most people have two of them and lasers, to me, where only known through Star Wars. Nonetheless, Jack and the others saw me as trainable, and I was assigned to the group. I did not know they actually meant that I truly had potential. I was given an assignment to research if the long-term viewing standards for near IR exposures could be relaxed. Jack and the team encouraged as I progressed, despite many epic fails. Once I had the relevant data of retinal image motion, I talk with Jack, thinking I would be given some cumbersome physics-based math but no, Jack said, make a movie! After significant episodes of “code rage” I succeeded and viola! The brilliance of Jack’s elegant suggestion of rendering data was evinced. I have never forgotten his lessons of observe nature first and then apply a formula that best maps to nature. Thank you Jack, I am forever grateful for your mentorship. The standard was changed due to the mentorship and collegial support of Jack and the directed energy team. Thank you in helping me realize my potential. Of course, I went on to Command and General Staff College and was known as “Laser Boy”. Below is the cartoon classmates published of me.

Education and Training in Optics and Photonics (ETOP) 2023

CREOL, The College of Optics and Photonics is hosting an international conference that brings together about 200 scientists and engineers from all around the world, renowned for their leading expertise in optics and photonics and education. It is a unique opportunity for our community to share information about the best practices of teaching optics at all levels.

CREOL is hosting the ETOP Conference May 15-18, 2023 at the Hilton Cocoa Beach Oceanfront

Find our more information at etop.creol.ucf.edu

• Lasers

• Optics

• Positioning

• Sensors & Detectors

• Imaging

• Test & Measurement

• Solar

• Light Sources

• Microscopy

• Machine Vision

• Spectroscopy

• Fiber Optics

• Materials & Coatings

Name: Yannanqi Li

Hometown/State: Changchun, China

Year in School: 5th Year PhD

Area of Study/Major: Optics and Photonics

When were you first introduced to photonics/electro-optics?

At the end of my third year of undergraduate, I joined Prof. Qionghua Wang’s lab and began research on the electrowetting optical switch project. I witnessed the eye-opening interaction between the optical response and the electric field due to an electrically driven shutter modulating light transmittance.

What or who inspired you to choose your line of study?

I started my dream of becoming an influential researcher in optics during my undergraduate study, where I was blessed to have chances to be involved solving real research problems. I was impressed by many physical phenomena in optics by the time I finalized my first project of electrowetting optical switch. Also, I was fascinated by such a detail-driven, problem-solving lifestyle and enjoyed the moments when all my efforts paid off. Soon, I realized that a PhD degree in optics in a renowned institute will help me to lay the foundation for my goal.

Describe your favorite course you have taken so far.

My favorite course is flat panel displays taught by Prof. Shin-Tson Wu. He vividly taught us the history, principles, applications, and future development of liquid crystal in depth. He also invited academic experts from outside the school and engineers with rich experience to give us lectures, so that we could learn the frontiers of industry and expand our horizons. The content of the teaching laid a solid foundation for my academic research.

Are you researching anything at the moment? Can you tell us about it?

During my PhD, I have been developing novel liquid crystal devices and optical system design for augmented and virtual reality near-eye displays. Currently, I am working on switchable liquid crystal devices which can help to improve the viewing performance for waveguide-type augmented reality eyeglasses.

What would you like to do in the future with your studies?

My career goal is to become a highly capable researcher and work in an industrial R&D department to contribute my efforts for facilitating the optics industry.

GUIDANCE DOCUMENT Surveying, Leveling, and Alignment Laser Products

The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is issuing a guidance to outline, for manufacturers, the FDA’s approach regarding the applicability of FDA’s performance standard regulations to surveying, leveling, and alignment (SLA) laser products to help manufacturers with questions they have raised. This guidance addresses topics including considerations for what is an SLA laser product, examples of SLA and non-SLA laser products, and information on variances and exemptions from SLA laser product class limits.

Find it here: https://www.fda.gov/regulatory-information/search-fda-guidance-documents/ surveying-leveling-and-alignment-laser-products www.icaleo.org

Abstract Deadline: April 3, 2023

World’s Premier Platform for Breakthrough Laser Solutions ICALEO® brings together the leaders and experts in the field of laser material interaction, providing the world’s premier platform for sharing new ideas and discovering solutions.

Submissions: Submissions should contain original, recent, unpublished results of application research, development, or implementation. Product endorsement papers will not be accepted. Manuscript deadlines must be strictly observed. Late manuscripts will not be published in the proceedings. Options for poster presentations are also available.

Abstracts that describe specifications and opportunities for any of these laser applications are welcome:

Conference Tracks:

Laser Additive Manufacturing

Laser Materials Macroprocessing

Laser Materials Microprocessing

Frontiers in Laser Applications

Laser in Battery Manufacturing

Beam Shaping for Laser Materials Processing

Artificial Intelligence in Laser Processing

Presented by: