We have approximately 200 students on our mailing list. Of these, 19 are members of SPIE (below). We are currently working to increase this number.

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1 SPIE Student Chapter Annual Report Harvard University (Harvard Photonics) May 2013 May List of current student chapter members We have approximately 200 students on our mailing list. Of these, 19 are members of SPIE (below). We are currently working to increase this number. Member Roster Total Student Members: 18 [Hide Roster] Name Expires Muhammad Rehan Chaudhry 24 March 2015 Benjamin Franta 30 June 2014 Andrew Greenspon 4 November 2014 Sarah Griesse-Nascimento 16 January 2015 Boran Han 31 October 2014 Melissa Haskell 28 October 2014 Rachel Heasley 30 May 2014 Yuting Huang 18 December 2014 Mikhail Kats 20 November 2014 Samuel Kim 17 January 2015 Pawel Latawiec 9 October 2014 William Lo 19 December 2014 Philip Munoz 7 December 2014 Vicente Parot 17 December 2014 Kasey Phillips 6 January 2015 Orad Reshef 30 March 2015 Nabiha Saklayen 15 January 2015 Xingyu Zhang 20 May 2015 Alumni Roster Total Alumni: 1 [Hide Roster] Name Graduation Date Nima Tabatabaei Mar 2012

2 2. Details of chapter activities since last report In fall 2013, activities went on hiatus as we transitioned to a new leadership board. This occurred near the end of the semester, so we began planning for spring 2014 activities at that time. In spring 2014, we had two foundational activities for the chapter: the biweekly photonics journal club and the guest speaker series. We kept the number of different types of activities small to build up a significant number of attendees first and not spread ourselves too thin. We restarted the biweekly student-led journal club, which has met throughout the entire spring semester and continues into the summer. This photonics journal club met approximately every two weeks over lunch to discuss one or two hot journal articles in optics and photonics chosen by the student leading the session that week. During the spring we averaged attendees per session and consistently got a mix of regular attendees and new people. The journal club has been an effective way to encourage students to take on active leadership roles in Harvard Photonics. The regular meeting times have made this event really effective at building a connected community of student researchers doing work in optics and photonics at Harvard. It is also very cost-effective. We also hosted two guest speakers: Eric Dauler from MIT Lincoln Labs, who discussed low photon count detection device physics and detection of photons from lunar orbit, and Ramesh Raskar from the MIT Media Lab, who discussed a range of topics from ultra fast imaging to next generation CAT-scan machines and handheld retina scanners. Both speakers discussed their research from a more general perspective to attract a broad audience while also providing technical details for those in the audience with such a background. Both speakers were very good at engaging the audience. These two events were fairly popular, with around people in attendance at each event, including students and some faculty. We held a social with each speaker afterward, which were attended by approximately 5-10 people each time and provided an opportunity to hear about each speaker s career path from a more personal perspective, as well as providing networking opportunities. This social also allowed students from different research groups to socialize, and it helped facilitate possible future collaborations. The talk and informal social afterward therefore complement each other well. Event dates and type are given below: 2/11/2014 Journal club 2/18/2014 Journal club 3/4/2014 Journal club 3/18/2014 Journal club 4/2/2014 Speaker and Social (Eric Dauler) 4/15/2014 Journal club 4/16/2014 Speaker and Social (Ramesh Raskar) 4/29/2014 Journal club 5/13/2014 Journal club 5/27/2014 Journal Club

3 Chapter meetings Regular chapter meetings were held approximately once every month. Meetings generally consisted of a review of finances, finalizing arrangements for upcoming activities, and developing ideas and plans for future activities and chapter operations. Transition to new officers In fall 2013, activities went on hiatus while we transitioned to a new leadership board. We successfully transitioned to a new board at the end of the fall 2013 semester and had regular activities in spring Details of planned activities for the future Harvard Photonics New Year Kick-Off We have had a new leadership committee for Harvard Photonics since November 2013, but did not have any recruitment event last year. Nevertheless, we have attracted significant attendance to our activities in spring To further grow our numbers and expand our activities, we want to kick off the school year with a big recruitment event. We'll introduce the leadership committee, recap our members' optics-related summer adventures, and solicit ideas for activities in the new school year. Harvard Photonics Student Journal Club As described above, we will continue our successful student-led journal club, which has been an anchor for our chapter in spring Every other week, students will get together over lunch to discuss one or more interesting journal articles in the field. There will be a student session leader who will have chosen the journal article(s) and who will facilitate the discussion. Lunch will be provided. We plan to hold these approximately every other week throughout the summer and school year. Speaker Series We plan to continue our successful speaker series from spring We plan to host a number of speakers in fall 2014 covering a wide array of topics for people with many different backgrounds. These events are part technical and part career-oriented, and they consist of a talk, an informal question and answer session, and a social with the speaker afterwards where members and the speaker continue to discuss scientific and career matters of interest. We find these to be highly popular and fairly easy to organize. In spring 2014, we brought in speakers from MIT Lincoln Labs and the MIT Media Lab who spoke on both technical material and towards a broader audience with the subject matter accessible to people in optics and far reaching related scientific fields. In fall 2014, we hope to continue with talks by researchers in academia, government, and industrial labs who can speak both towards technical and broad audiences, covering fundamental optics research, applications, and career advice in the optics field. Joint Activities with Other Photonics Chapters - To encourage community-building and collaboration among optical societies in the Boston area, we propose to hold a joint event with the MIT optics and photonics group. The event will combine social and networking opportunities, discussion of student members optics and photonics research, and discussion about each group's goals.

4 We have also been in touch with the leadership of the City College of New York SPIE Chapter for planning a joint activity with SPIE chapters in the northeast. We hope to have some sort of conference or related activity in fall Youth Education - Some of our members take part in outreach events, but we would like to organize our own outreach efforts so that they form a more cohesive part of our chapter programming. We think this will be a good way to have fun, participate in the local community, and build community in our group. We hope to use an optics outreach kit along with some of our members research materials for fun optical demonstrations. While this activity still requires planning and will depend on the interests of our chapter members, we hope to maybe work with the Boston Museum of Science and local schools in the greater Boston area. As the details of some of these activities are still under development, we are happy to provide the latest information to the SPIE Board of Directors as it becomes available. If the Board desires an update at any time, please contact the chapter president, Andrew Greenspon, at andy.greenspon@gmail.com 4. Financial information Date (Income) Event (expenditure) Cost (-) or income (+) Balance 2/7/2014 SPIE /11/2014 Journal club /18/2014 Journal club /4/2014 Journal club /18/2014 Journal club SPIE /2/2014 QH Social (Eric Dauler) /15/2014 Journal club /16/2014 QH Social (Ramesh Raskar) /29/2014 Journal club /13/2014 Journal club /27/2014 Journal club The table above provides a record of chapter income and expenditures between May 2013 and May We did not host any activities in fall 2013, so there were no financial expenditures or income. We began with carried over funds from SPIE, OSA, the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), and the Harvard Quantum Optics Center (HQOC). Over the course of the year, we received additional funding from SPIE. Chapter expenditures consisted of sponsored social hours that occurred in conjunction with our speaker series (see Section 2 for further description) and lunches associated with the Photonics Journal Club. Cost per event varied based on attendance (see Section 2 for approximate attendance numbers).

5 5. Names and addresses of elected officers Officers for May 2013 May 2014: Name Office Andy Greenspon President Yuting (Tina) Huang Vice President Boran Han Treasurer Orad Reshef Webmaster/Secretary Prof. Eric Mazur Faculty sponsor The officers above will continue through to fall 2014, at which point we plan to hold elections for new officers.