SPIE Professional magazine

This issue of SPIE Professionalmagazine includes articles about several SPIE conferences that advance green technologies, including the upcoming Innovation Summit; articles about the state of the photo-lithography business; and two pieces on what SPIE constituents are doing to train future optical engineers.

The cover article is about the entrepreneurial climate in Europe and was written by Jose Salcedo, CEO of Multiwave Photonics in Portugal.

The full text of articles in the SPIE member quarterly is available only through an SPIE member login. However, one article in each issue is designated as open access. This issue’s open access article is by ASML chief scientist Bill Arnold who writes about his optimism about the future of semiconductor manufacturing. Arnold believes that lithography has adapted itself to scaling requirements over the years and that future fabs will remain “litho friendly. New technologies won’t easily displace optical lithography as a driver for Moore’s Law, he says.

The magazine also has articles about virtual autopsy, remote sensing, telecom, the Photonics Academy in Wales, new photonics societies in Poland and Hong Kong, and SPIE members in the news.

Spicer, a student at Three Rivers Community College in Connecticut, joined about 100 other SPIE Student Chapter leaders from 18 states and countries, including Poland, China, India, and South Africa at the workshop.

Spicer told the newspaper that the optics and photonics conference in San Diego inspired him to continue his education in fiber and laser optics and electrical engineering.

“He’s considering the University of Central Florida and the University of Arizona, and looking for a job that will help pay for school. He said a lot of people are intimidated by jobs in the optics and engineering fields, but they shouldn’t be.”

Spicer said a career in science is scary to some people because “It’s a lot of math and a lot of science. But once you get past all that, it’s different,” he told the newspaper.

Read the whole article

There’s a press release about it and a short article in SPIE Professional online. Here’s the skinny on the new officers and directors, all of whom are SPIE Fellows:

• Universidad Autonoma Professor Maria J. Yzuel (Spain) is the 2009 president
• Ralph B. James of Brookhaven National Laboratory (USA) will serve as president-elect
• Dr. Katarina Svanberg of Lund University (Sweden) was elected 2009 vice president
• Brian Lula, president and CEO of PI Physik Instrumente (USA), will serve another term as secretary-treasurer

New members of the SPIE Board of Directors are:

• Jennifer Barton
• Donis Flagello
• Bahram Javidi
• Upendra Singh
• Hugo Thienpoint

Many of the students who attended the SPIE Student Chapter Leadership Workshop on Saturday stayed for the exhibition and symposia at SPIE Optics+Photonics in San Diego.

In addition to attending conferences, presenting papers, and enjoying the comraderie of other optical scientists, several erected exhibits to show activities of their SPIE Student Chapters.

Students from Poland, Brussels, Singapore and elsewhere proudly exhibited in the San Diego Convention Center.

The Newport and Spectra-Physics Research Excellence Travel Awards are “one of the most valuable things we do as a company,” according to Newport’s Randy Heyler, senior director of Strategic Marketing, who presented the awards. He called the award recipients “the future of our industry.”
Newport Corp. develops innovative products and solutions for lasers, opto-mechanical components and mounts, optical filters, photonic instruments, and other systems and devices. Spectra-Physics is a leader in laser technology.

Winners of the student awards included four from Pennsylvania State University, Michael Motyka, Michael Stinger, Justin Liou, and Jyotsna Bhamidipati. Also accepting awards at the luncheon were Ozan Cakmakci from the College of Optics & Photonics at the University of Central Florida; Ashwin Wagadarikar, Duke University; Lane Martin, Missouri University of Science and Technology; Jonathan Suter, University of Missouri at Columbia; Ramzi N. Zahreddine from the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology; Ignacio Gallardo, University of Texas at Austin; and Neetu Chopra, University of Florida.

More news from the SPIE event in San Diego.

An annual event at SPIE Optics+Photonics includes an SPIE Student Chapter Leadership Workshop for 100-200 students from all over the world.

This year’s all-day Leadership Workshop was held Saturday, 9 August, at the Marriott in San Diego, and other events for students and early career professionals were held on Sunday when the technical conferences officially began.

I took this photo with my iPhone, so it may not be too sharp, and it looks like some people standing on the right got cropped out. Sorry!

On Sunday about a dozen optics educators and other professionals offered 100 of these attendees career advice and tips on giving effective presentations; job interviewing; writing proposals and journal articles; and spreading the word about the importance of science education.

Panelists for sessions discussing career opportunities included

• Brigitte Wex, assistant professor of Chemistry at Lebanese American University
• Former SPIE President Malgorzata Kujawinska of Politechnika Warszawska

• Sanjay Krishna, associate professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of New Mexico

• Marc Himel of Tessera North America

• David Wick of Sandia National Labs and a member of the SPIE Board of Directors

• Richard Youngworth of Light Capture

SPIE CEO Eugene Arthurs addressed students and ECPs during a luncheon program, emphasizing the vast array of opportunities in the field of optics and photonics. He spoke of the growing need for – and shortage of ‑ technical professionals to solve climate, energy, health, manufacturing, and other problems affecting humanity.

“Solutions to these problems will require technical, economic, social, and political skills,” Arthurs said. “You can make a difference, and I urge you to do so.”

Over the weekend, SPIE also announced the winners of a Web site competition among SPIE Student Chapters. Stanford University’s SPIE Student Chapter took first place in the contest, and the International School of Photonics in India won a second place award. Honorable mentions went to Wroclaw University of Technology in Poland, the University of Texas at Austin, and the SPIE Student Chapter in Singapore.

The SPIEWorks Career Fair on Tuesday and Wednesday at the San Diego Convention Center is also aimed at assisting those early in their careers finding an employer. Top recruiters from Ball Aerospace, Cymer, GE, KLA-Tencor, Raytheon, Tessera, Lincoln Laboratory and other top photonics organizations will be recruiting at the Career Fair.

Representatives from SPIE Professional magazine and the SPIE Newsroom are on site covering the events.

They also heard from Sanjay Krishna, associate professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of New Mexico (USA), and SPIE President Kevin Harding, Optical Metrology Leader at GE Global Research in New York (USA).

Sanjay’s talk, The Journey Is As Important As the Destination, traced his early career path from the Indian Institute of Technology in Madras to graduate school in Mumbai and later at the University of Michigan (USA) to his current faculty position. Krishna received the SPIE Early Career Achievement Award earlier this year and offered seven important lessons to illustrate his journey so far:

1. If things succeed, give everyone around you credit; if they fail, take the blame.
2. Avoid being rude or unprofessional in your personal behavior
3. Respect people who work for\with you
4. Be assertive, but not necessarily aggressive
5. Learn to laugh at yourself
6. Conduct a worse-case scenario analysis
7. Realize that hard work never killed anyone

Harding encouraged the students to make sure they sat in on at least one conference at SPIE Optics+Photonics that covered “something you know nothing about.” After all, Harding explained, the field of optics and photonics is all about interdisciplinary collaboration and innovation.

Networking with SPIE leaders in San Diego was also high on student attendees’ agendas.

“Many new collaborations get started here,” said leadership workshop veteran Carlos Lopez-Mariscal who currently works in the Laser Cooling and Trapping Group at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). Lopez-Mariscal attended SPIE student workshop several times when he was a student and established lasting relationships with others in the optics community in Mexico, Columbia, South Africa, Scotland, and elsewhere.

Beth Kelley’s article in SPIE Professional puts the spotlight on a number of products and devices that use optical technologies to help the environmentally and tech-savvy consumer monitor and save energy. These green tools include the Ambient Orb, Ewgeco and Wattson to monitor how much electricity you are using, electrochromic windows, and hybrid solar chargers for small electronic devices.

The Washington Post story, which was picked up by a number of other newspapers, talks about some of these devices as well as the “Prius effect,” a trend among owners of Toyota’s hybrid car to have friendly rivalries and competitions for better mileage. The elaborate monitors on the Prius dashboard seem to be making Prius drivers more conscious about energy conservation and changing their driving habits in surprising ways. 

Beth was named SPIE’s Brightest Star for the month of February at an SPIE employee gathering today. She has been the voice behind SPIE’s new Member Webcasts through SPIE.TV, works as an editor for SPIE Press and performs much of the online uploading and editing for the SPIE Newsroom and SPIE Professional — all while attending a master’s program at WWU and working as a teaching assistant there. She’s truly amazing!

Beth is the latest member of the SPIE Professional staff to earn recognition for stellar work at the member quarterly.

Carrie Binschus, the graphic artist for the magazine, earned the SPIE Brightest Star of the Year honors for 2007 for her tireless efforts in the production and design of the magazine and other materials for the Society.