Helmut K.V. Lotsch was elected a Fellow of OSA by the Board of Directors at the annual meeting in October 1978. Dr. Lotsch received his Dipl.-Ing. degree in 1958 from the (Technical) University of Karlsruhe, his M.S. degree in 1962 from the California Institute of Technology, and his Dr.-Ing. degree in 1970 from the Technical University of Aachen, all in electrical engineering.

From 1957 to 1961 he was an R & D engineer at AEG-Telefunken and a NATO Fellow at the California Institute of Technology (1961–63) and at Stanford University (1963–64). Then he joined the Northrop Space Laboratory in Hawthorne, CA and was engaged at the Autonetics Division of North American Aviation/Rockwell International in Anaheim, CA from 1966 to 1971. In 1970 he was a visiting scientist at the Technical University of Aachen, and in 1972 he moved to Springer-Verlag in Heidelberg as head of the physics department.

Dr. Lotsch has served as editor-in-chief of the journal Applied Physics and founded the renowned book series Topics in Applied Physics and Topics in Current Physics. He has carried out research in the areas of nonlinear distortions in semiconductors, television picture tubes, computational physics, underwater acoustics, lasers, and optics. Dr. Lotsch has received several awards and honors; in 1960 he received a three-year NATO fellowship, in 1961 he was awarded the Urtel prize by the German Television Society, in 1978 he was elected a member of IUPAP’s publication committee, and in 1979 he was named a member of the R. W. Pohl awards committee. Dr. Lotsch is a senior member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and a member of the European and German Physical Societies.