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Starting a conversation about social issues in optics and photonics

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Science and society are inextricably entangled, but the discussion of social issues in optics and photonics is, at best, treated as peripheral to the field. A group of researchers, technicians, administrative staff, and clinical liaisons share how they came together to start a conversation recognizing these oft-disregarded issues.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the creators of the Social Issues in Biology: Race in Biosciences Journal Club that took place at Harvard University in 2020 for the sharing of their materials, and the Harvard Culture Lab Express Grant programme for their financial support of our Salon. We also express our heartfelt thanks to the invited speakers of the Salon series, A. Boudrioua, J. Wade, E. Freeman, L. Garibyan, G. Tearney, and T.-N. Tran.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Wellman Center for Photomedicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, USA

    Kimberli Bell, Taylor M. Cannon, Amira M. Eltony, Chhavi Goenka, Abigail L. Gregg, Nathaniel Hai, Danielle J. Harper, Helen Keshishian, Nichaluk Leartprapun, Haley L. Marks, David O. Otuya & Linhui Yu

  2. Research Laboratory of Electronics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Taylor M. Cannon

  3. Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA

    Amira M. Eltony, Chhavi Goenka, Nathaniel Hai, Danielle J. Harper, Nichaluk Leartprapun, Haley L. Marks, David O. Otuya & Linhui Yu

  4. Olin College of Engineering, Needham, MA, USA

    Chhavi Goenka

  5. Cutaneous Biology Research Center, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, USA

    Haley L. Marks

Authors
  1. Kimberli Bell
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  2. Taylor M. Cannon
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  3. Amira M. Eltony
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  4. Chhavi Goenka
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  5. Abigail L. Gregg
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  6. Nathaniel Hai
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  7. Danielle J. Harper
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  8. Helen Keshishian
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  9. Nichaluk Leartprapun
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  10. Haley L. Marks
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  11. David O. Otuya
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  12. Linhui Yu
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Contributions

All authors contributed equally to this work, and are listed in alphabetical order.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Danielle J. Harper.

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Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

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Bell, K., Cannon, T.M., Eltony, A.M. et al. Starting a conversation about social issues in optics and photonics. Nat Rev Phys 6, 286–288 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s42254-024-00705-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s42254-024-00705-4

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