In the latest issue of AOS News read reports on activities taking place during National Science Week to remember Aleksandr Prokhorov and from the Science Meets Parliament event in Canberra. There is also an item about a lecture series at QUT as part of the OSA centennial celebrations and an article from the winner of the AOS 2015 postgraduate student prize, Katie Chong, on shaping light with optics. Other items in this issue include an article on using diffractive imaging in stress analysis and our ‘Optics in Everyday Life’ section looking at colour vision deficiencies.