SPIE Optics and Photonics 2025: Kyle Myers from Puente elected as SPIE Chair

The founder and principal of Puente Solutions Kyle J. Myers has been elected to serve as the 2026 Vice President of SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics. With her election, Myers joins the SPIE presidential chain. She will serve as president-elect in 2027, and as the Society’s president in 2028.

Newly-elected: Myers, McNally, Rubinsztein-Dunlop, Wade, Medicus, and Erdmann

The 2025 SPIE President Peter de Groot, Zygo Corp. scientist emeritus, made the announcement along with other SPIE election results at this year’s Annual General Meeting of the Society on 5 August, during SPIE Optics + Photonics, in San Diego. Terms begin on 1 January 2026.

Myers, founder and principal at Puente Solutions, is also currently a fellow at the Hagler Institute for Advanced Study at Texas A&M University. Her areas of technical research across her career in government, industry, and academia have included medical imaging and biomedical optics; signal processing and AI/ML; vision science and perception; and technical translation from ideation to market authorization.

From 1987 until 2021, Myers worked at the FDA’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health; her final role there was as Director of the Division of Imaging, Diagnostics, and Software Reliability.

An SPIE Fellow, Myers was the recipient of the 2024 SPIE Harrison H. Barrett Award in Medical Imaging, and a 2006 recipient of the Joseph W. Goodman Book Writing Award. She sits on the Society’s Strategic Planning Committee and its Publications Committee. From 2018-2023, she served on the SPIE Board of Directors.

She has participated as an SPIE Awards Program Chair, an associate editor for the Journal of Medical Imaging, and, from 1996-2005, as part of the program committee for the Image Processing Conference at SPIE Medical Imaging. Myers is currently on the program committee for the Image Perception, Observer Performance, and Technology Assessment conference at SPIE Medical Imaging. She is also a fellow of AAPM, AIMBE, and Optica, and a member of the National Academy of Engineering.

Myers was featured in the 2014 SPIE Women in Optics Planner where she stated: “I have devoted my career to advancing approaches for evaluation of medical imaging devices from a subjective practice to an objective and quantitative science; my lab develops methods for evaluating novel medical imaging devices and provides independent, objective data regarding device performance.”
“This is a type of lab science that is not done elsewhere. It is extremely rewarding to have a research job that is concretely assisting in getting new medical products to patients as quickly as possible, based on solid scientific evidence of their benefits.”

“Through SPIE we are working for more than the advancement of optics and photonics technologies — we are working for the betterment of the human condition,” said Myers. “I look forward to serving SPIE as we work together to do even more to educate, empower, grow, and support optics and photonics professionals around the world.”

Other SPIE electees

Alongside Myers, University of Rochester Professor Julie Bentley will serve as the 2026 SPIE President while Cather Simpson of the University of Auckland and Orbis Diagnostics, will serve as President-Elect. Jim McNally, CEO of StratTHNK Associates, was elected to serve as the 2026 SPIE Secretary/Treasurer.

The following newly-elected Society Directors will serve three-year terms from 2026-2028:

Halina Rubinsztein-Dunlop, professor of physics at the University of Queensland and deputy director of the Australian Research Council’s Center of Excellence in Quantum Biotechnology.
Jessica Wade, research fellow and lecturer at Imperial College London.
Kate Medicus, CEO and owner of Ruda Optical.
Rainer Erdmann, CEO and founder of PicoQuant.

The SPIE nominating committee accepts recommendations for the election slate on an ongoing basis. Directors, who serve a three-year term, are expected to attend and participate in three board meetings each year.

Source: optics.org