The University of Rochester SPIE Student Chapter June 2016 – May 2017 The chapter was established on 19 June 2009 Total Student Members: 86 Total Alumni: 25

Elected officers for the 2016-2017 year: President: Anthony Vella Vice President: Anthony Yee Treasurer: Robert Draham Secretary: Kaitlin Wozniak Web Administrator: Di Xu Communication Officer: Trevor O’Loughlin

Outreach Committee: Katelynn Sharma (Chair) Ashley Cannaday Charlie Granger Robert Draham Nicole Naselaris

Undergraduate Committee: JT Pirog (Chair) David Lippman Raymond Yu Kai Williams Brandon Dube

Faculty Advisor: Prof. Jannick P. Rolland

1 ACTIVITIES This year we held three meetings for our chapter:

1. General Interest Meeting: September 2015; 2. “Members Only” Holiday Meeting, December 2015; 3. Election Meeting: April 2016.

Additional events from throughout the year are described in the following sections.

1.1 Summer student colloquium series As tradition, we continued the annual Student Summer Colloquium series in the summer of 2016. We believe the series constitutes 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 snacks and refreshments. Presentations were promoted by putting up posters on campus and sending email reminders to students and faculty in various departments. This year we kicked off the series with a talk by Prof. Duncan Moore from our own Institute of Optics. The talk was promoted as a joint event with the campus group Students for Science Advocacy, and Prof. Moore discussed the role of a PhD Engineer in the US Senate and White House in the Office of Science and Technology, how to get involved, and what is expected of someone in this position. In the subsequent weeks, we had eight graduate students from the university giving presentations of 20-40 minutes. Thanks to everyone who participated in the colloquium series, and special thanks to all the speakers who have given excellent presentations throughout the summer:

Speaker Talk title Prof. Duncan Moore Experiences in Science Policy Aizhong Zhang A Short Review of Optical Imaging in Opthalmology Fernando Zvietcovich Optical Coherence Elastography of Porcine Cornea, Sclera,

and Cornea/Sclera Transition by Tracking Lamb Waves Anthony Vella Optimization of a polarization-sensitive focused beam

scatterometry setup for subwavelength metrology Sam Butler 3 axis measurement probe for optical metrology Gustavo Gandara Improving human vision: a short overview Betty Sun Suppressing the fundamental thermo-optic noises of a high-

Q microresonator Kang Liu Study of THz emission from ring-Airy beam induced plasma Jose Perez Improving beam quality in high power broad-area lasers

1.2 Outreach During the year we participated in the following outreach activities:

November 2017: East Ridge High School Two chapter members visited an AP physics class to discuss various areas of optics and the job opportunities that are available (particularly in the Rochester area). The talk included a demonstration of diffraction gratings.

November 2017: Rochester Mini Maker Faire

This was our chapter’s first time participating in this event, which attracted over 3,000 visitors eager to explore science, technology, crafts, and much more. Our exhibit included demonstrations of diffraction gratings, laser communications, polarization/stress birefringence, a 3D-printed VR headset, and a forward-looking IR camera.

Figure 1: Katelynn and Nicole present optics demonstrations at the Mini Maker Faire.

November 2017: Girl Scout Leader Workshop Held a workshop for local girl scout troop leaders on how to teach science to small children. The workshop described simple DIY demonstrations/activities such as creating a tower with paper, scissors, and paper clips.

November 2017: Optics Slam We visited East High School to assist with their “Optics Slam” event featuring optics lectures and demonstrations for high school students (grades 9-10). Student groups rotated through four lectures, which talked about the EM spectrum, polarization, telescopes, and glass machining. The activity was part of the Hillside Work-Scholarship program for students in the Rochester city schools.

February 2017: Family STEM Night at Northside Elementary School in Fairport, NY.

Presented the Optics Suitcase demonstrations, Rainbow Peephole diffraction gratings and a variety of light sources, and the forward-looking IR camera to elementary school students and their families.

April 2017: Girl Scouts STEM-A-Palooza.

Presented polarization/stress birefringence demonstrations and other demos from the Optics Suitcase.

Figure 2: Marien teaches girl scouts about birefringence.

1.3 Recreational activities For members only, we organized the following activities:

In September 2016, we organized a BBQ picnic with the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) SPIE student chapter. We were glad to network with other local students and a good time was had by all.

Figure 3: Local chapters unite for food, fun, and optics!

In November 2016, we visited the Corning Museum of Glass with a group of seven chapter members. We anticipated a larger group, but several students had to cancel. Nonetheless, those who attended had a great time!

Figure 4: Corning Museum of Glass field trip attendees.

From April 2017 onward, we have started to join the RIT student chapter for monthly happy hour events. This is a great chance to relax and socialize, in addition to promoting further collaboration between our chapters.

1.4 Guest speakers, networking, and professional development

In September 2016, our chapter took part in a Grad Life Event sponsored by the university’s Graduate Student Association. The purpose of this event was to help graduate students connect with each other and learn about campus clubs and organizations. The SPIE chapter had a booth with free giveaways and a poster describing our activities and member benefits. The timing of this event also allowed us to promote our upcoming general interest meeting later in the month.

In October 2016, members of our chapter had the privilege of meeting the current and incoming SPIE presidents, Dr. Robert Lieberman and Dr. Glenn Boreman, during OSA’s Frontiers in Optics conference in Rochester. We greatly enjoyed fruitful discussions with both of them. Dr. Lieberman also visited campus to give a talk on optical waveguide sensors.

Figure 5: Students who did not attend Frontiers in Optics had the opportunity

to enjoy Dr. Lieberman’s talk at the university.

During Frontiers in Optics, we also had the opportunity to meet with SPIE student chapter officers from the University of Southampton and the University of Fukui. This was a great opportunity to discuss ideas for chapter activities and community involvement.

Figure 6: Rochester chapter members meet visitors from the University of Southampton (left) and

the University of Fukui (right).

In November 2016, we hosted a colloquium by Dr. Stephen Boppart from the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. This visit was sponsored by SPIE’s visiting lecture program, and the talk was titled “Translational Biophotonics for Imaging in Medicine and Surgery”. The talk was very well received, and Prof. Boppart was able to meet with many students and faculty from the Institute of Optics.

Figure 7: Prof. Boppart’s colloquium and lunch with student chapter members.

In March 2017, the SPIE student chapter and the Women in Graduate Engineering Group organized a workshop titled “Mastering scientific information for students in optics and physics” by librarian Linda Hasman from the University of Rochester Medical Center Miner Library. Attendees learned how to navigate the ocean of scientific information and how to master and manage those information effectively for their research projects, applications, manuscripts, and dissertations.

In April 2017, the OSA and SPIE student chapters hosted a colloquium by Institute of Optics alumnus Jim Wyant on his experiences in starting and growing optical companies. Students also attended a lunch event with Prof. Wyant the next day.

Each semester, our chapter typically visits a local optics company, allowing students to connect directly with potential employers. We reached out to a few companies to inquire about a tour, but nothing came to fruition during this academic year. We recognize the importance and popularity of company visits and will continue to pursue these opportunities in the future.

1.5 SPIE conferences In January 2017, Kaitlin Wozniak and Anthony Yee used the Officer Travel Grant to attend SPIE Photonics West in San Francisco, CA. They also participated in the Student Leadership Workshop, and Kaitlin gave a presentation about company visits at the Student Chapter Meeting that evening.

Figure 8: Officers Anthony Yee and Kaitlin Wozniak meet SPIE president Glenn Boreman at the Student Leadership Workshop at SPIE Photonics West.

2 Financial Information

Starting Balance $3354.00 Income SPIE Activity Grant $2700.00 Subtotal $2700.00 Expenses Food for chapter meetings $1370.97 Summer Colloquium refreshments $269.42 Member prizes/raffles $150.00 Outreach supplies $365.64 Member activities, guest speakers, and networking events

$1097.87

Donations $50.00 Subtotal $3303.90 Ending Balance $2750.10

3 Future Directions

With 111 members (86 students and 25 alumni), the University of Rochester SPIE Student Chapter is already the third largest SPIE student chapter. We plan to keep increasing the membership by engaging more the undergraduate and master’s-level student population, which is growing quickly at the Institute of Optics, and more generally at the University of Rochester. Here are the goals and the planned activities for next year:

Anthony Yee will use the Officer Travel Grant to attend Optics and Photonics and the Student Chapter Leadership Workshop in San Diego in August 2017.

We will continue to organize visits to local companies involved in optics. We plan to organize one visit in the fall and one in the spring. The process of selecting and contacting potential companies to visit is currently underway.

We will continue our annual Summer Colloquium Series. 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. We are also hoping to get speakers from other departments who do research with optics. This year’s series will begin with a talk by Prof. Miguel Alonso titled, "Can [optical device] n perform [seemingly unphysical task] n?" At the end of the colloquium series, awards will be given to the two best student speakers.

Along with the Summer Colloquium Series, we are actively pursuing the possibility for students to be involved with the Institute of Optics colloquium series which runs during the school year. This would be a once a month colloquium talk by a student as the guest speaker on their research. This would give the student the opportunity to give professors and students some exposure to their research and gather useful feedback from professors within the department.

We are working on figuring out who we want to pick for our visiting lecturer. We have narrowed down the list to four candidates and will be taking a poll from the chapter soon. We have decided to go with a speaker in the area of optical design and fabrication for space telescopes. We are aiming for a November 2017 date for the speaker.

The SPIE student chapter has been working with the RIT student chapter to organize more joint events. RIT has invited our chapter to their monthly social gathering. The UofR chapter is working to organize similar social gatherings to bring together multiple departments with optics together. We will also invite the RIT chapter to these social events.

The RIT OSA chapter is hosting an IONS conference in October. The UofR OSA and SPIE chapters are hoping to help support either financially through the Institute of Optics or by helping to promote the conference to get students to give talks at IONS.

The SPIE student chapter has been very active in outreach. The UR SPIE Outreach Committee which was formed last year has been a huge success. With the number of outreach opportunities which come up in a year, it is nice to have a dedicated committee to manage them. They play an important role in organizing the continuing outreach efforts of the chapter. The local Brighton Farmers Market is starting an “ask a scientist” table which we will be the scientist for 2 dates in the summer and 1 in the fall. There is a solar eclipse happening in August where we will set up a couple telescopes around campus so people on campus can view the eclipse.