SPIE Carleton University Chapter

December 1, 2013 Page 1

Student Chapter Reports

Department of Electronics, Carleton University

AP 332, 1125 Colonel By Drive, Ottawa, ON, Canada K1S 5B6

SPIE Carleton University Chapter

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Current Chapter Officers

President: Bryce Dorin (bryce.dorin@gmail.com)

Vice President: Seyed Alireza Aleali

Secretary: Ryan Veenkamp

Treasurer: Yule Xiong

Advisor: Winnie Ye

Carleton Univ. Chapter’s activities since last report

1. Leadership Development

Laser World of Photonics 2013, Munich, Germany

May 12, 2013

Summary: The chapter made use of its travel grant by sending Bryce Dorin to the SPIE

Leadership Workshop held in conjunction with Laser World of Photonics 2013. The workshops

run by Dirk Fabian and Jean-luc Dumont taught leadership and communication skills. They also

gave advice for recruiting new members.

Bryce attended many of the social events organized by SPIE and by the other chapter

executives present. He was able to develop relationships with SPIE chapters around the world,

and gain some industry contacts after attending the “Getting Hired” advice panel.

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2. Campus Light Outreach

Carleton University, Ottawa, ON, Canada

July 12, July 17, July 19 2013

Presenters: Winnie Ye, Scott Newman, Ryan Veenkamp, Juan Heredia, Ali Alireza, and Bryce

Dorin

Summary: For the second year in a row the Carleton SPIE Chapter gave presentations for Shad

Valley and Virtual Adventures, which are high school summer camps at the university. Our

presentations included fun experiments making use of polarizers, diffraction gratings,

waveguiding, solar cells, and other interesting optics. We had a wide variety of experiments

which allowed us to tailor the presentation to the age group. We hope that these

demonstrations inspire students to pursue optics when they reach the university level.

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3. Recruiting Khet Tournament

Carleton University, Ottawa, ON, Canada

June 12, 2013

Summary: The chapter organized a Khet tournament to bring in new potential members. The

event was held in the evening at a campus bar. To make the event more attractive, the chapter

bought a 7’’ tablet as the grand prize. The tournament ran well, and was chance for the SPIE

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members to relax together outside of the work environment and meet other potential

members. Next year we hope to advertise more heavily and bring in more students from

outside the chapter.

4. SPIE trip to Rochester

Rochester, NY, USA

Rochester Precision Optics, Toptica, and the University of Rochester

July 30th – 31st, 2013

Summary: Bryce Dorin, Ian Smith, Juan Heredia, Ryan Veenkamp, Scott Newman, and Yule

Xiong teamed up with the University of Ottawa SPIE members Brett Smith, Majid Naji and Fanqi

Kong on a trip to Rochester, NY. The goal of the trip was the develop relationships with

industry and academia in this optics hub. The group drove down in three separate vehicles.

After meeting Matthew Pembroke at Laser World of Photonics 2013, Bryce and Brett were able

to organize a tour of Rochester Precision Optics on July 30th, where the group was exposed to

the process of making precision lenses. A tour of Toptica was organized for the same day,

where we learned some theory on ultrafast fiber lasers, and saw some examples and

demonstrations of the technology.

On the evening of July 30th, the group met with the University of Rochester SPIE chapter for

dinner and a short tour of Rochester. The next day our tour group was shown around many

labs in the Institute of Optics at the University of Rochester. Our SPIE chapter saw a variety of

interesting projects, from quantum optics to laser vision correct during the tour. After lunch

the group then drove home.

Both Ottawa SPIE chapters feel the trip was a huge success and hope to do something similar in 2014.

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5. Paper Review Sessions

Carleton University, Ottawa, ON, Canada

Bi-weekly, 2013

Summary: As a group we noticed that it is easy for one to get too absorbed in his or her specific

research project, and forget about the huge variety of work there is being done in optics. That is what

inspired the bi-weekly weekly paper review sessions held in a room on campus. One student is selected

for each meeting to pick a journal paper in a subject area they find interesting but are not working in.

They then send the paper out to the group a few days before so everyone has a chance to read it. In the

meeting we then discuss normal SPIE activities at the beginning, but also spend 30 minutes or so going

over everyone’s thoughts on the paper. We try to explain points some people found confusing, and talk

about why this research is important. The group has enjoyed these very much, and as researchers we

feel more in touch with optics as a whole.

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6. Ottawa IONS Conference

The University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON, Canada

May 31st – June 2nd, 2013

Summary: The Carleton SPIE chapter helped organize the IONS conference held at the University of

Ottawa. Using our visiting lecturer grant, we arranged for Eustace L. Derniak to speak at the conference.

SPIE member Yule Xiong also gave a presentation at the conference on his work with polarization

rotators. As well, our SPIE chapter dealt with the Faculty of Engineering at Carleton University and

convinced them to sponsor some of the events.

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Future activities plan:

1. Participation in SPIE conferences.

2. Hosting a SPIE FOCUS conference.

3. To prepare to invite professors and experts in photonics to make lectures in Carleton

University.

4. To organize several group lectures on photonics during our meetings

5. To cooperate with other SPIE chapters around the world, and to cooperate with OSA chapter

in Ottawa.

Conclusion

During the past year, we have collected experience through organizing events and lectures. In

January we will elect new officers, who hope to continue the work we started this year. We

hope to grow our chapter considerably.

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Current list of members

Name Expires

Alireza Aleali 1 December 2014

Katherine Bock 29 January 2014

Shuyu Ding 10 December 2014

Bryce Dorin 5 July 2014

Juan Heredia 1 July 2014

Deepak Kaushal 22 January 2014

Owen Marsh 13 November 2014

Ian Smith 2 July 2014

Yao Sun 20 November 2014

Ryan Veenkamp 16 January 2014

Yule Xiong 14 November 2014