By Mark Dwortzan
On Thursday, November 13, 2003, at 11:00 a.m., at Ben Gurion University of the Negev, chemistry postdoc Dr. Richard Tasgal
P'84, presented a nonlinear dynamics seminar on third-harmonic generation and Kerr effects in focusing beams. Got that? You might not have a clue what it means, but Tasgal lives this stuff every day. To translate, the 37-year-old scientist is studying how very intense beams of light propagate through different materials. His research could help ongoing efforts to boost the rate at which we transmit information across optical fibers, the building blocks of today's telecommunications revolution.
These days Tasgal is analyzing the dramatic changes that super-intense light beams undergo when they pass through certain optical materials. To get a handle on the unruly, or nonlinear dynamic behavior of these focused light beams, Tasgal is developing new and improved sets of equations. "These equations model the propagation of pulses of light that are extremely short and intense, so we can improve our understanding of basic nonlinear dynamics," he explains.
Tasgal is also studying light pulses called solitons that display no significant dynamic changes as they course through different media. Because they retain their shape or wavelength over long distances, scientists hope to use solitons to boost the rate of data transmitted across fiber optic networks.
To conduct all this research, Tasgal puts in long days on campus making pencil-and-paper calculations. "It's nice to make an advance just by thinking more creatively, though often you can spend a lot of time banging your head against the wall," he says. To give his brain a break, he often turns to individual sports such as handball, squash, roller blading, skiing, unicycling and biking.
On the surface, deriving equations to describe the dynamics of light may look like yet another individual sport. But Tasgal's research taps into the work of several research groups at institutions around the globe, including universities in the United States, Canada, Japan and Israel. Since 1982, he has logged a number of years in each of these countries learning about the optics, electronics and applied mathematics that drive his research. "You might say I've studied my way around the world."
"I originally came to do my PhD," Tasgal says, "but after a while in Israel I came to feel at home."
Tasgal's globe-spanning journey began at Newton South High School, Mass., where he enjoyed and excelled in mathematics and equation-heavy subjects such as physics and chemistry. In his junior year Tasgal scored a perfect 800 in math on his SATs, which he completed in short order. Very short order. "The day Richard took the exam, I showed up at Newton South a half hour early to pick him up," recalls his father Norman
Me'ah'01, an operations research specialist and accountant who is a member of the President's Council and the Finance Committee, a former trustee and a supporter of Hebrew College. "I saw this one lone figure coming out of the building, and it was my son."
After graduation, Richard went to Canada, where he studied physics at the University of Toronto, and then New York City, where he earned a master's degree in applied physics at Columbia University. While at Columbia, Tasgal became particularly interested in solitons and the mathematics used to model their behavior. But when his adviser ran out of funding for research in this area, he began looking elsewhere for opportunities. That search led him to Dr. Boris A. Malomed, a renowned Russian physicist who had come to Tel Aviv University the year before.
Without missing a beat, Tasgal followed Malomed to Israel. Under the physicist's guidance for much of the 1990s, he completed a PhD in applied mathematics, specializing in the study of optical fibers and the dynamics of focused light beams. In Malomed he found the perfect role model for his life's work: "He had a knack for picking out tractable, interesting problems, squeezing everything he could out of a model, and getting results."
Toward that end, Tasgal spent 1999 as a postdoc at Kochi University of Technology in Japan, where he studied the effects of dispersing light through ring-shaped optical networks. He next returned to Israel and landed a job at a company that made optical routers, devices that quickly disperse information across an optical fiber network. When the company's prospects dimmed in 2002, he signed on with his current employer, Ben Gurion University.
As the years went by, Israel began to grow on Tasgal—so much so that he made aliyah in 2000. "I originally came to do my PhD," he says, "but after a while in Israel I came to feel at home." Another factor that made it easier for Tasgal to transition to Israeli citizenship was his command of Hebrew and Jewish culture. Like one of his two younger brothers, Ralph
P'85, he attended Prozdor in the 1980s. "Richard was an outstanding student who was very much interested in Jewish law," recalls former Prozdor director Dr. Michael Libenson
P'53, HC'58, "and an exceptionally good athlete."
For Tasgal, who had already spent several years as a graduate student in Tel Aviv, the decision to make aliyah was a no-brainer. "There's always something interesting going on here," he says. "Here I have work, friends and family. What else do you need?"
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