Journal of the Optical Society of America A is the main title of this journal. Often neglected, however, is the subtitle: “Optics, Image Science, and Vision.” Since image science has many connotations, I hope to offer here some clarification of the scope of our coverage of image science and to encourage submissions in this, one of our three key areas.

Our goal is to publish work in image science that is connected to other topics in the Journal in some way. For instance, studies that provide advances in image processing based in optical physics are well-suited for JOSA A. In addition, research that connects image processing to vision or to visual psychophysics is certainly at home here, as well as work that leads from image processing to optical system design. These examples are certainly not exhaustive, and fundamental research that provides major breakthroughs in image science is always welcome, even if not clearly connected to other areas. Above all, we aim to publish high quality research with long-term impact in optics, imaging, and vision.

The number of submissions in image science and image processing has increased recently and we hope that you, our authors and readers, will continue to send us your best work. To help process your papers in a timely, fair, and constructive manner, we are very happy to welcome a new topical editor, Prof. Amit Ashok. Amit recently served as a guest editor at JOSA A and so already feels like a member of the team. He has made major contributions in computed imaging, inference, and information theory while somehow finding the time to assume major leadership roles at OSA meetings. He comes to us from one of the great beaming bright lights on the world map of optics research and education, the University of Arizona. I am incredibly pleased that Amit has agreed to join us at JOSA A as topical editor for incoherent image processing and look forward to working with him.

Amit Ashok

Incoherent Image Processing

Amit Ashok is an Assistant Professor in the College of Optical Sciences and the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Arizona. He received his Ph.D. and M.S. degrees in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Arizona and the University of Cape Town in 2008 and 2001, respectively. Before joining the University of Arizona faculty, he was a senior research scientist in the research and development division of Omnivision CDM Optics from 2007 to 2009, and worked on novel computational imaging system designs for commercial applications ranging from security to mobile phone cameras. Since joining academia in 2009, he has served as Program Chair and General Chair of OSA’s Computational Optical Sensing and Imaging (COSI) conference in 2013 and 2014, respectively. In 2016 he helped launch two SPIE conferences on Computational Imaging (CI) and Anomaly Detection and Imaging with X-rays (ADIX) as General Chair. He was the lead editor for a JOSA A feature issue on single molecule imaging in 2016, along with co-editors Rafael Piestun and Sjoerd Stallinga. Ashok’s research interests include computational/compressive imaging and sensing, Bayesian inference, statistical optics, and information theory. He has made key contributions in task-based joint-design framework for computational imaging and information-theoretic system performance measures such as the task-specific information. Ashok has authored over 30 peer-reviewed publications, holds several patents, and has been invited to speak at OSA, IEEE, SIAM, SPIE, and Gordon research conferences.