University of Rochester SPIE Student Chapter. Annual Report. June 2012 to June 2013

Transcription

1 University of Rochester SPIE Student Chapter Annual Report June 2012 to June 2013

2 1. Introduction The University of Rochester SPIE student chapter has made great progress in its fourth year of existence. Both community outreach and the Women in Engineering (WiE) program continued strongly this past year, with a number of service opportunities and the monthly lecture series for WiE. The chapter held multiple interest meetings and social events this year including laser tag and ice skating to increase membership. A number of diverse speakers from around the nation were invited to give both technical and career-oriented lectures. In an effort to build upon last year s goal of offering our members more exclusive benefits, we continued to hold certain members-only events including picnics and luncheons with invited speakers. We also organized several visits to optics/photonics related companies around Rochester area. Our chapter currently has 69 members, a 17% increase over this time last year. We also now have 19 alumni, which is more than double the number we had this time last year. Elected Officers for : President: Jinxin Huang Vice President: James Corsetti Treasurer: Dustin Shipp Secretary: Yuhong Yao Webmaster: Brandon Zimmerman Faculty Advisor: Prof. Jannick P. Rolland

3 2. Activities 2.1 General Interest Meetings Election meeting for officers April 27, General interest and update meeting September 28, 2012 Election meeting for officers April 24, Elected Officers for (with membership numbers and addresses) President: Dustin Shipp ( ), Vice President: Daniel Savage ( ), Treasurer: James Corsetti ( ), Secretary: Chenggong Wang ( ), Webmaster: Aaron Bauer ( ), 2.2 Student summer colloquium series 2013 We continued the annual Student Summer Colloquium series in the summer of 2012 which served as an excellent opportunity for practicing scientific presentations and for fostering discussion and collaboration between student researchers in various departments of the university. The talks were held in a relaxed environment in the form of a brown-bag lunch seminar with the SPIE student chapter providing desserts and refreshments. Presentations were promoted by putting up posters on campus and sending reminds to students and faculties in various departments. The dean s office of the Hajim School of Engineering and Applied Sciences also helped us announcing the event in their weekly newsletter. Ten graduate students from four departments (BME, ECE, ME and Optics) have given presentations with minutes of talk length. A total of eight colloquiums were held with an average of 30 attendees. Thanks to everyone who participated in the colloquium series, and special thanks to all the speakers who have given excellent presentations throughout the summer: Rebecca Wilson, the Institute of Optics, Multi-Modal Optical Methods for Intra-Procedural Evaluation of Breast Specimens. Bin Ma, the Institute of Optics, Applying Forbes Aspheres to Develop Higher Performance Lithographic Lenses. Yuzhe Xiao, the Institute of Optics, A new approach to pulse propagation in nonlinear optical media. HimanshuShekhar, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Feasibility study of high-frequency harmonic chirp imaging for the assessment of Coronary Artery Disease.

4 Joe Vornehm Jr., the Institute of Optics, Photonic Technologies to Enable Slow Light Applications. Huimin Zhao, the Institute of Optics, Cellular 3D Imaging of Normal Skin and Non-Melanoma Cancer Skin Using Gabor Domain Optical Coherence Microscopy. Karla P. Mercado, Department of Biomedical Engineering, Using high frequency ultrasound to characterize three-dimensional engineered tissues. Daniel E. Savage, the Institute of Optics, Intra-Tissue Refractive Index Shaping (IRIS) and its Applications to Vision Correction. Steven Gillmer, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Fiber-Coupled, Multi-Degree of Freedom Displacement Measuring Interferometer for Precision Stage Metrology: I. Richard C. Smith, the Institute of Optics, Fiber-Coupled, Multi-Degree of Freedom Displacement Measuring Interferometer for Precision Stage Metrology: II. 2.3 Outreach The outreach committee was involved with conducting several events over the past year. To help the group to more effectively present Optics material to area youth, this year we added the KHET (lasers game) from SPIE to our list of several educational materials, including polarizer sheets, a pound of mica (to show birefringence), and color filters to show color addition/subtraction and laser maze. These accessories were used in the following: Science Saturday: Science Saturdays is a citywide promotion of science to those interested in various aspects of science and is held at the Rochester Museum. This fall, we presented our laser maze in a James Bond themed manner at the Science Saturdays. We brought with us several other optics accessories to inform students on the

5 concept of light and how light carries information and proceeded to challenge the students and their families to see if they could make it through the maze! Optics Family Night: Members of the UR SPIE outreach group participated in The Institute of Optics/Rochester OSA Family Night in December, showing various optical demonstrations for area optics professionals and their families. It was a fun event that gave our participants the chance to adapt their presentations for all age levels, from small children to curious adults. Among the list of exhibits we provided to the night was our laser maze as well as our KHET kit. 2.4 Company Visiting Corning Company The chapter visited Corning on July 19, We visited their research and development labs, and met with the scientists and engineers working there. They shared with us their experience of working in industry. Our students had a poster session during lunch time to present our research and projects at the University of Rochester Toptica Company Our chapter visited a Toptica on Oct 18, They showed our students their manufacturing facility, and discussed with us about their future business plan.

6 2.5 Lectures We enjoyed four lectures this year. We chose the most important topics that can guide the career development of our students. Rachel Won, the Editor-in-Chief of Nature Photonics, visited us on Oct 19, Rachel talked through the concept of scientific detailed information and guidelines on scientific manuscript preparation and submission, as well as an overview of editorial process and the peer-review system. We learned what editors seek, how to write a good cover letter and a good scientific paper, how to review a manuscript and how to make an appeal. Xi Chen, an optical engineer from Apple, gave us a presentation about her experience of working in industry. Dirk Fabian, who is in charge of SPIE student services, visited us in March He facilitated a discussion with our students on personality analysis, which helps our students to understand themselves better and communicate with other people in a more effective way. Kathleen Perkins, CEO and advisor to global organizations with a blended background in technology and business, gave a talk on April 19th She talked about the steps all technical graduates should consider to start their career more effectively, as well as the path to entrepreneurship.

7 2.6 Social Events To create an active platform for our student community to network, we had a series of social events, including ice skating, members-only picnic and raffle, laser quest with RIT SPIE chapter.

8 2.7 WiE The Women in Engineering (WiE) group at the University of Rochester continues to organize monthly meetings with guest speakers from academia and industry. The format of the meetings a brown bag lunch is conducive to informal discussion and networking. Speakers for the past year included Rachel Won (Nature Publishing Group), Jessica DeGroote Nelson (Optimax Systems, Inc.), and Kathleen Perkins (BIO5 Institute). A special multi-disciplinary event was held at the Women in Music Festival at Eastman School of Music, with a networking session and pre-concert chat with composer Melinda Wagner. The website of the group can be found at 3. Financial Information Starting Balance $5,839 Income SPIE Activity Grant The Institute of Optics Donation Total $2,100 $500 $2,600 Expenses Corning Trip (paid for by previous donation) Summer Colloquium refreshments Gifts for Summer Colloquium speakers Food for meetings Posters Guest Speakers Social Events Total $1,020 $ $ $ $85 $1, $69.5 $3, Ending Balance $4,499.14

9 4. Future Directions The University of Rochester SPIE Student Chapter continues to grow in both membership and involvement. This year, our chapter will focus on increasing the interaction of our members with each other and with other groups in our community. We also hope to take advantage of the thriving optics industry in our area through company tours and guest speakers. To achieve these goals, we have begun planning the following activities: We will continue our annual Summer Colloquium Series. This year, each week will feature either two 20-minute talks or one 45-minute talk. This will encourage more participation from younger students whose research is less developed. Students will also have the option to present troubleshooting talks instead of finished research. These talks will present a problem currently stumping the student and solicit feedback from the diverse audience. At the end of the colloquium series, awards will be given to the three best speakers. An Outreach Committee has been formed to lead our expanding efforts to introduce optics to younger students. In addition to continuing programs at the University of Rochester and the Rochester Museum and Science Center, we plan to visit local high schools to introduce the field of optics as a possibility in college. We hope to also team up with the University of Rochester s OSA student chapter on outreach projects. We will continue the very successful tours of local optics companies. We are currently reaching out to several companies as well as building on existing relationships with companies previously toured. We plan to invite multiple speakers throughout the year. To save on travel costs, we will focus on speakers living near the Rochester area with one or two exceptions. Speakers will be recruited from a variety of fields to share both scientific and professional development talks. As our chapter continues to grow, we will continue to hold recruiting events to increase membership, especially in departments other than Optics. In the previous year, we participated in a few social activities with the SPIE Student Chapter at the Rochester Institute of Technology. We hope to continue to develop this relationship through more social activities including bowling, laser tag, and capture the flag. We are making efforts to encourage participation and develop leadership skills in more members of the chapter. As part of this effort, our membership and fundraising committees will both be led by members who have never held an office in the chapter. James Corsetti and Chenggong Wang will use the Officer Travel Grant to attend Optics + Photonics and the Student Chapter Leadership Workshop in San Diego in August 2013.