4 OPTICS LETTERS / Vol. 27, No. 1 / January 1, 2002

Message from the Outgoing Editor

It is a great pleasure to welcome Anthony J. Campillo as the new Editor of Optics Letters. In addi-tion to Tony’s distinguished research career, he served the optics community by volunteering hisservices as Topical/Assistant Editor of Optics Letters for the period 1993–2001—a period thatsupported the tenure of Past Editor Peter W. E. Smith as well as mine.

This is my 13th year of service to Optics Letters, both as Ultrafast Optical Phenomena TopicalEditor and my second final term as Editor—this has been a tremendously wonderful professionalexperience, and I must admit some sadness about terminating my editorial association with OpticsLetters. This year marks the 25th anniversary of Optics Letters, and I am proud to be among thegroup of distinguished editors responsible for making it the premiere optics journal—BobTerhune, Paul Kelly, and Peter W. E. Smith.

During my tenure, the rate of manuscript submissions was fairly constant at over 100 per month.Or, as pointed out by the OSA manuscript staff, over 7200 manuscripts crossed my desk duringmy term as Editor! In 1996 the Optics Letters Review Committee, Chaired by Richard Slusher(Lucent) pushed for tighter acceptance criteria as requested by the customer survey. As a directconsequence of this survey and with the tremendous support of our diligent Topical and AdvisoryEditors, the Optics Letters manuscript acceptance rate has been a constant 49–51% for the period1996–2001. The emphases on rapid publication and quality review are the hallmarks of the highregard in which Optics Letters is held by the optics community.

Finally, I want to wish Tony Campillo the best of success as he guides our journal into thefuture—indeed, Optics Letters is in very good hands.

Anthony M. JohnsonNew Jersey Institute of Technology2002 OSA President