Standing here with Armand Niederberger

A glimpse of IONS-5 Participants at Work

A very early morning taxi ride took us to the airport where we headed to Munich for our flight to Dulles airport in Washington DC. My wife Bobbi, who had been a very welcome and gracious travel companion for the trip, headed back home to northern California, while I hopped a cab and headed into Washington for three days of meetings.

My first meeting while in DC was on Capital Hill, where I met with US Congressman Rush Holt and presented him with the Advocate of Optics award for 2008. Congressman Holt is one of three members of congress with a Doctorate in Physics. He has been instrumental in helping to raise awareness of the key role that optics and photonics has played in telecommunications, biomedicine, solar energy, solid-state lighting and homeland security. Congressman Holt was particularly interested in the increases in efficiency that are possible using the next generation of photo-voltaic optical materials as well as the major impact potential of solid-state LED lighting in reducing energy consumption. These two technologies alone could reduce our fossil fuel usage and overall energy consumption by as much as 40 %. Educating our government officials of this potential is one of my major goals this year as OSA president. OSA/SPIE Congressional Fellow Rob Saunders, who works in his office, joined us for the presentation of the award.

Baer, Holt, and Saunders

We returned to OSA headquarters for meetings with staff and then I headed to a reception at the US National Archives near the White House. My visit there was hosted by the Network and Information Technology Research and Development (NITRD) arm of the US federal government. NITRD is a trans-agency coordinating committee developing strategy for the next generation internet and networking technologies. Thirteen of the major government funding agencies attended the meeting, including: the Department of Energy, the Department of Defense, NASA, NIST, NIH, and NSF. My presentation stressed the IT infrastructure components that were critical in order to publish, peer review, archive and visualize very large data sets, published along with scientific manuscripts. One of the attendees at the meeting, Bob Kahn, co-inventor of the TCP-IP protocol for the internet, along with Vint Cerf, a fellow member of the VCAT committee of NIST. Both are considered to be the founding fathers of the internet.

Before the second day of the NITRD meeting, and the final day of my IONS safari, I had a breakfast meeting with a colleague who was starting a nonprofit foundation to fund research to develop effective methods for early diagnosis of lung cancer. Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer deaths and kills roughly a half million people per year world-wide. If detected in its early stages the disease can often be cured by surgical removal of the tumor. Imaging technologies such as computed tomography (CT) and positron emission tomography (PET) show great promise for providing a means for early diagnosis of lung cancer. Over the past few years OSA, along with the Prevent Cancer Foundation, has been instrumental in co-sponsoring workshops and meetings to explore the use of CT imaging in early detection of lung cancer. We discussed imaging and molecular analysis technologies and their growing roles in helping to reduce lung cancer mortality.

This was a very productive trip and I have made many new friends over the past several weeks. OSA was the inspiration for this blog, intending to provide interested student members a feel for some of the aspects of being president of OSA. My best regards to all of you who made this journey with me…

The students at ICFO organized and played host to the fifth meeting of the International OSA Network of Students or IONS 5. It is difficult for me to capture in words the atmosphere at this student organized and financed event. The scientific talks were excellent quality, the organization was flawless, and the enthusiasm of the attendees for optics and photonics was unmatched by any conference I have attended. There were roughly 20 oral and 20 poster presentations on a wide range of topics. The poster session was held in a hallway where the 75 or so attendees would gather during breaks. The noise level during the poster sessions was so high that one had to speak at full volume to be heard. Students came from all over Europe, as well as several students from North America and Africa. Each chapter had the opportunity to share their success stories about educational outreach activities and student chapter activities during the past year.

My wife Bobbi and I were guests at a dinner organized by the ICFO faculty and which include Maria Yzuel, the current president of SPIE. The restaurant was located near the beach, the food was excellent and we spent the evening discussing world politics, European soccer, and the best wine regions in Europe; all topics which tended to illicit a wide range of comments and strong opinions from my dinner mates.

IONS5 ended with a conference banquet held at a local Tapas restaurant which involved over 60 students and faculty and a Saturday tour of Barcelona guided by ICFO students. The IONS5 meeting was the original motivation for my European trip (IONS Safari), my first trip abroad as OSA president. As I mentioned, it is impossible for me to capture in words the atmosphere at this event, which apparently was similar to the tone of the previous IONS meetings. I strongly encourage any of you who have a chance to drop by one of the IONS meetings to take advantage of this unique opportunity to mingle with the next generation of optics and photonics scientists and engineers. You will find it truly inspiring.

Allister Ferguson, James Watt, and Tom Baer

My host, Professor Allister Ferguson, and I have known each other for close to 30 years and have many common friends and colleagues. I first met Allister when he spent time at Stanford working with Art Schawlaw back in the late 1970s. Allister was instrumental in helping develop CLEO Europe, working very closely with Kari Apter who is traveling with me.

Kari Apter and Allister Ferguson

The University of Strathclyde has a long tradition of encouraging entrepreneurship which has resulted in the creation of several local photonics companies over the past decade. The founder of the University, John Anderson, stressed the importance of a ‘practical education’ and encouraged strong interaction with local industry. I found many similarities to my home institution of Stanford University. Allister is the founder of the Institute of Photonics at Strathclyde. “The Institute of Photonics, established in 1996, is a commercially-oriented research unit, part of the University of Strathclyde. The Institute’s key objective is to bridge the gap between academic research and industrial applications and development in the area of photonics.”

My visit was also hosted by the Strathclyde student chapter, with whom I met for a review of emerging photonics opportunities and a discussion of different career paths open to photonics students. I spent the day meeting with researchers in the Institute of Photonics and the Centre for Biophotonics discussing a broad program of research activities in optics and then met with professors from other Scottish Universities to discuss joint US/Scotland research programs. The Principle of the University, Professor Andrew Hamnett, organized a marvelous dinner “in college” and stressed the University of Strathclyde’s enthusiasm for and commitment to continue to support their photonics program.

Trieste to Paris (massive Charles DeGaulle Airport) on to Dublin (slightly smaller), and finally Galway where we had no trouble finding Kari Apter (OSA Staff) in the airport. OSA Vice President Chris Dainty and the OSA Galway Student Chapter hosted my visit to the National University of Ireland for meetings with photonics students, faculty, and government officials. My hosts in Ireland put together a very informative program including breakfast with the University President and his staff, research overviews, lab tours, presentations by scientists working at local photonics companies, and summaries of Irish government efforts designed to foster innovation specifically in optics and photonics programs at Irish universities.

Kari Apter and Tom Baer

The technical overviews presented by several photonics companies located near Galway illustrated a broad range of applications: intraocular lens implants, single photon solid-state detector arrays, and ultra-miniature, self-focusing cameras (the size of a pin head) for the next generation of mobile phone cameras.

OSA Student Chapters from Cork, Dublin and Galway gathered for their first ever joint meeting. Kind of a mini-IONS meeting held for the first time on the Emerald Isle. I don’t think this will be their last joint meeting, and I look forward to seeing some of my Irish comrades at the IONS meeting in Barcelona.

The next morning Kari and I met with a representative from the European Union (EU) to discuss Photonics 21, which funds photonics research throughout the EU. We discussed how OSA could best support European efforts to explore new areas of photonics research including solar energy, solid-state lighting, and bio-photonics.

After two very productive days filled with meetings Bobbi, Kari and I were treated to Irish hospitality and congeniality courtesy of my huge tribe of Irish cousins who happen to be located in the Galway area. And I found out once more that Irish hospitality rivals that of any nation on Earth.

Irish Cousins and Hospitality!

Prof. Zohra Ben Lakhdar (right) with student.

The International Center for Theoretical Physics (ICTP), situated just outside of Trieste on the sea, formed in 1960 to provide a venue for students and faculty from underserved locations across the world to participate in research in physics. For the past several years, OSA has supported a Winter School in Optics at ICTP, which has engaged hundreds of students from dozens of countries. Several OSA members, most notably former OSA President Anthony Johnson and OSA Fellow Sune Svanberg, have been instrumental in working with students from many countries through ICTP and other organizations. Engaged, energetic students and faculty from Tunisia, Somalia, Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Ghana, Cameroon, Macedonia, Senegal and Malawi shared their passionate interest and excitement in Optics and Photonics as well as a determination to overcome the many barriers that hinder their ability to engage fully with the worldwide scientific community.

Anthony Johnson with Kathy Bailey Mathae (NAS) and Angela Guzman (TSOSA)

After this amazing opportunity to exchange stories and contact information, I spoke with Anthony and Sune, who added more detail about the difficulties of accessing scientific articles, obtaining basic research supplies and maintaining adequate basic utilities necessary for an optics laboratory. They explained the importance of training students and providing them with the resources to allow them to return to their home country and continue their research as well as teach and inspire the next generation of students. The students were eager to learn about the applications of photonics in medicine, renewable energy, water purification and other areas that were relevant to their home countries.

The ICTP leadership expressed gratitude for OSA’s support of their programs and indicated that they were extremely interested in exploring other ways that OSA and ICTP can expand their collaboration.

How do we more? Our student members and chapters can effectively engage their counterparts, invite them to form their own student chapters to attend IONS meetings, and share strategies for organizing regional meetings and outreach activities. I would be glad to work with any of you who are interested in establishing contact.
baer@ix.netcom.com

Secretary of Energy Steven Chu at OSA Leadership at Anderson House (obviously Secretary Chu received the memo about the blue tie…):

The trip started in Washington, D.C., with a two day meeting of the Visiting Committee for Advanced Technology (VCAT) at the National Institute of Standards (NIST). VCAT is a senior advisory board working with the NIST director, senior staff, and Congress to provide strategic guidance. The first picture includes your president with Lou Ann Heimbrook: a senior executive from Merck, and Vint Cerf. Chief Internet Evangelist at Google and who is widely known as the ‘father of the internet’ (I wonder who’s the mother?)

After NIST, a quick meeting at NSF with managers of the Networking and Information Technology Research and Development (NITRD) program. NITRD is tasked with the challenge of developing the road map for federal investments in the internet over the next decade or so. They had heard about OSA’s Interactive Scientific Publishing (ISP) initiative and wanted more details about this and other related activities I have been involved with at Stanford.