by Micheal PadillaHope Michelsen, a distinguished member of the technical staff at Sandia’s Combustion Research Facility, has been elected as a Fellow Member of The Optical Society (OSA).Hope is honored specifically for pioneering contributions to the fundamental understanding of laser-radiation interactions with soot particles through laser-induced incandescence (LII), absorption, and scattering, and using LII to assess environmental impacts of carbonaceous particle.“It is an unexpected honor for me to be elected to be an OSA Fellow,” says Hope. “It is an opportunity for me to remember and express gratitude for all of the great people I’ve worked with in developing the optical diagnostics for soot and black carbon that have brought me this honor. I have also been very fortunate to have stable funding through the DOE BES program to accomplish this work.”Hope’s research program focuses on developing and using optical techniques for studying the chemistry of combustion-generated particles inside the combustor and their impact on climate when released to the atmosphere. Her research experience includes gas-surface scattering experiments, atmospheric modeling, soot-formation studies, combustion-diagnostics development, atmospheric black-carbon measurements, and greenhouse-gas source attribution.