Orbis Diagnostics CEO elected into SPIE presidential chain
Cather Simpson, the society’s next vice president, is a longtime participant in the society’s conference, publications, and outreach activities.
The University of Auckland professor and Orbis Diagnostics chief executive officer has been elected to serve as the 2025 vice president of SPIE. She will serve as president-elect in 2026, and as the society's president in 2027. The 2024 SPIE president Jennifer Barton made the announcement along with other SPIE election results at this year's annual general meeting during SPIE Optics+Photonics.
SPIE Lifetime Member Cather Simpson was named an SPIE Fellow Member last year. She served on the SPIE board of directors from 2021 to 2023; as co-chair of the SPIE Micro + Nano Materials, Devices, and Applications conference in 2019; as a frequent judge for the SPIE Prism Awards, Catalyst Awards, and the SPIE Startup Challenge; as a member of the SPIE Education Committee, and of the SPIE Equity, Diversity & Inclusion Committee. She currently chairs the SPIE Publications Committee, and sits on the SPIE Strategic Planning Committee. In 2018, she was featured in the SPIE Women in Optics planner; that same year, Simpson and Orbis Diagnostics won third place in the SPIE Startup Challenge.
Alongside Simpson, Zygo Corporation’s Peter de Groot will serve as the 2025 SPIE president while University of Rochester professor Julie Bentley will serve as president-elect.
Jim McNally, CEO of StratTHNK Associates, was elected to serve as the 2025 SPIE secretary/treasurer.
The following newly elected society directors will serve three-year terms from 2025-2027: Alexis Vogt, endowed chair and professor of optics at Monroe Community College and AmeriCOM’s executive director of workforce and higher education, Debbie Gustafson, CEO of Energetiq Technology, Brian Pogue, Robert Turell UWMF professor of medical physics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and editor-in-chief of SPIE’s Journal of Biomedical Optics, and Prof Kishan Dholakia, director of the Centre of Light for Life at the University of Adelaide.
