As we “turn the page” to 2023, I’d like to take some time to celebrate what we’ve accomplished at the journal during my first year as Editor-in-Chief, and to recognize the efforts of our editors and the Optica Publishing Group staff to deliver an outstanding publication service to the community. It is also a great moment to send greetings, and to thank all the contributing authors and reviewers for their continued dedication to our Journal.

Firstly, I am happy to share the excellent news that the first post-pandemic year, 2022, has seen about a 30% increase in published articles. The total number of regular papers, tutorials, and comments reached almost 300, being in line with pre-pandemic figures. In addition, this year we enjoyed three feature issues: Digital Holography and 3D Imaging [1], Image Quality and Perception [2], and 100 Years of Emil Wolf [3]. The latter was a rare opportunity for many of us to pay tribute to one of the most remarkable physical optics scientists of the previous generation. We also delivered eight tutorials [4], providing advanced educational opportunities to our early-career readers and to those tackling new research areas. I am grateful to all the guest editors and contributing authors involved in developing these unique publication items.

I truly enjoy working with the JOSA A editorial board, whose expertise and enthusiasm help to make the peer-review process at the Journal thorough and speedy. Their feedback and suggestions throughout the year were instrumental in ensuring continuity and efficiency in the service we delivered to our authors and readers. In particular, I would like to recognize four topical editors who finished their terms this year: Anne Sentenac, Amit Ashok, David Fischer, and Antigone Marino. I thank them for their excellent service and anticipate that they will continue to support JOSA A in other ways.

I am also pleased to introduce the editors who have joined the board in 2022. Markus Testorf (Dartmouth College, USA) is now serving as deputy editor. Markus’s broad expertise in various imaging modalities and inverse problems, penetrating into a large portion of the Journal’s coverage, as well as his motivation and his strategic thinking, will all be of tremendous value for our plans to expand and enhance our service to the community. I also welcome three new topical editors. Renjie Zhou (Chinese University of Hong Kong, China) will bring to the board his deep knowledge of comprehensive imaging systems, including microscopy, tomography, and digital holography, with an emphasis on biomedical applications. Małgorzata Szczerska (Politechnika Gdanska, Poland) will support the Journal in the physical optics domain, with specialization in instrumentation, measurement, and metrology, and a focus on interferometric systems and optical fiber sensors. Zhimin Shi (Reality Labs Research, Meta, USA) has academic and industrial expertise in experimental optics. He will support the area of structured and modulated light, especially polarimetry and pertinent applications to communications and sensing. Brief biographical sketches of our new editors are given below.

As we move forward into the new year, I would like to propagate my hopes that the global optics community will be even less affected by the pandemic and by the tragic events ongoing in Ukraine, Iran, and China. I send my special greetings to the optical scientists and engineers in these areas and wish for a speedy return to their normal lives and research.

Deputy Editor

Markus Testorf

Markus Testorf holds a Ph.D. in physics from the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, in Germany. Since his graduation he has worked at the National Institute for Astrophysics, Optics, and Electronics, Mexico, the University of Hagen, Germany, the University of Massachusetts-Lowell, USA, and Dartmouth College, USA. At Dartmouth, he has been engaged in optics-related research and teaching since 2003. His research interests cover a wide variety of topics related to information optics, including the design of diffractive and nano-optics, as well as computational imaging methods. Throughout his professional career he has employed phase-space optics as a tool for research and education. To his amazement, phase-space optics, long considered merely an esoteric way of thinking about optics, is currently becoming an integral part of exciting new imaging science. Markus Testorf is a fellow of Optica and a member of both the European Optical Society and the German Optical Society.

Topical Editors

Renjie Zhou

Microscopy, Tomography and Holography

Renjie Zhou is an assistant professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at The Chinese University of Hong Kong, where he directs the Laser Metrology and Biomedicine Laboratory. He received his Ph.D. in electrical and computer engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA, in 2014 and undertook postdoctoral training at the George R. Harrison Spectroscopy Lab at MIT, USA, between 2014 and 2017. He also holds a master’s degree in optical sciences from the University of Arizona, USA. His research interests include advancing optical imaging methods and demonstrating their applications in biomedicine and material metrology. His current research focuses on developing quantitative phase imaging and optical diffraction tomography methods and implementing state-of-the-art machine learning models to enhance the image analysis and reconstruction capabilities in his optical imaging instruments. He has published over 90 journal and conference papers and has been active in the optics community since first joining Optica in 2009, where he is now a Senior Member.

Małgorzata Szczerska

Instrumentation, Measurement and Metrology

Małgorzata Szczerska is currently the Chair of the Scientific Board of Biomedical Engineering at Gdańsk University of Technology, Gdańsk, Poland, where she received her Ph.D. and D.Sc. degrees in technical science, electronic engineering, in 2008 and 2016, respectively. She has supervised six Ph.D. theses and published more than 60 research and review articles. She has authored or coauthored nine patents. Her current research interests include the application of optical and electronic measurements in biomedicine.

Zhimin Shi

Structured and Modulated Light, Polarization

Zhimin Shi received his Ph.D. in optics from the University of Rochester, USA, in 2011. Before that, he received his bachelor’s and M.S. degree in optical engineering, both with honors, from Zhejiang University in 2001 and 2004, respectively. He is currently a Research Scientist at Reality Labs Research, Meta, USA. His research interests include AR/VR, metrology and applications of structured light, integrated photonics, optoelectronics, and metamaterials.