About this issue
We are marking this year the first decade of Vanderbilt's Free-Electron
Laser program. This interdisciplinary collaboration among researchers at
Vanderbilt has made remarkable progress, in a 
short
time, in basic and applied research for the benefit of humankind. In this
issue of Research at Vanderbilt, we review the unfolding of this program
and the individuals and organizations that have made it possible, as well
as contemplate its promise for new advances in science and patient care.
Vanderbilt's Free-Electron Laser Center, named the W.M. Keck Foundation
Free-Electron Laser Center following a significant grant from the Keck Foundation,
began with two foresighted physicists, Norman Tolk and Richard Haglund,
who saw that Vanderbilt possessed the ideal environment for the kind of
interdisciplinary collaboration needed to make the most of this emerging
technology. With support of then Dean of the College of Arts and Science
Jacque Voegeli, they succeeded in an intense competition with seven other
prestigious institutions to win approval from the U.S. Office of Naval Research
to build the FEL.
The project has prospered through the strong leadership of Charles Brau
and Glenn Edwards, the involvement of the College of Arts and Science, School
of Medicine and School of Engineering, and the support of first Voegeli
and more recently the late Madeleine J. Goodman, who as dean of the College
of Arts and Science attracted new levels of funding to the project.
As we enter the second decade of the FEL program, we are moving toward
the first applications of this technology to address the challenges of human
disease and disorders. This is an area ripe with potential for improving
patient care.
The FEL's promise ultimately will be fulfilled not by the nature of the
technology, but rather by the vision of those who use it. Vanderbilt's FEL
program is an example of the scientific establishment at its finest - collaboration,
creation, adaptation and the advancement of knowledge in ways that benefit
society. I hope you will join me in learning more about this fine program
and its potential for solving the mysteries of the unknown.
Joe B. Wyatt
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This document created November 18, 1996