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Five new Student Chapters/Clubs were approved by the Board of Directors at SPIE Photonics West in San Jose, USA. These new Chapters and Clubs join the steadily increasing population of optics / physics students. There are now 122 Student Chapters comprised of nearly 2,100 members in 20 countries.

The largest optics & photonics research conference and trade show in the world wrapped up in San Jose two weeks ago on a very positive note, despite headlines of a global economic down-turn and uncertainty in the financial markets.

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The SPIE Singapore Student Chapter will be hosting an Asia Student Chapters Meeting at Laser Metrology 2008. All student chapter members are invited to attend; travel assistance is available for students in the region. See the brochure (for Asia Region; for non-Asia Regions) for event details.

Visit the Laser Metrology 2008 website for more details about the technical conference.

Get creative with the Engineering Education Service Center 2008 Poster Contest! "Green Engineering" is the theme for this year's poster contest. Green Engineering is the design, commercialization and use of processes and products that are feasible and economical while minimizing the generation of pollution at the source and the risk to human health and the environment.

Contest deadline is 15 February; winners will be notified by 22 February. Cash prizes available for first, second, and third place contestants. Visit the contest website for details.

As you may (or may not) know, 17-23 February is National Engineers' Week in the United States. Last year, 40,000 engineers visited classrooms to share the world of engineering with students. Get involved; you won't regret it.

Find local Engineers' Week events at eweek.org. Need activity ideas? Check out the Engineers Week Solution Kits.

SPIE Student Services is proud to announce an expanded student program at Photonics Europe. Student attendees will enjoy added networking opportunities, the Entrepreneurship in Photonics workshop, new short courses, and a Chapter Breakfast.

Visit the Student Events page for detailed links to the on-site activities.

Congratulations to Wroclaw University of Technology for receiving the the first Collaborative Conference Grant of 2008! This funding will support professional development opportunities at the Third International Student Chapters' Meeting held 20-22 May in Wroclaw, Poland.

The next Collaborative Conference Grant applications are due 1 April.

Numerous conferences at Photonics West sponsor awards for the best student papers presented either orally or as posters. SPIE send congratulations to the following winners:

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Happy Lunar New Year! 7 February 2008 marks the beginning of the year of the Rat (in China) and signals the start of a new year in many other cultures in the region. Nearly 1.5 billion people will be celebrating the holiday by the time you read this. Learn more about the Lunar New Year at Wikipedia.org!

Student Chapters will notice an increased level of funding this year, enabling greater possibilities for future activities. The increased funding was approved, in part, to compensate the weaker US Dollar and to provide additional support for large active chapters. Increases affect:

• Chapter Activity Grants: No longer limited to $1100
• Visiting Lecturer Program: $1000 (up from $800)

Fourteen new Student Chapters/Clubs were approved at the Board of Directors meeting in Glasgow, Scotland. These new Chapters and Clubs join the steadily increasing population of optics / physics students. There are now 117 Student Chapters comprised of nearly 2,100 members in 19 countries.

Thankfully, no one stays a student forever. As SPIE student members graduate and join the world of the optics professional, their needs necessarily change. New questions about your future need new answers. How do you negotiate for a start-up package or an increase in salary? How do you write better proposals? What is the best way to manage a team of colleagues or grad students? Can I stop living on Ramen noodles?

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Humans spend much of their lives piloting cars from place to place. For millions of people who spend time stuck in traffic, the promise of one day being able to take their eyes off the road, read a book, or catch some extra sleep took a big step closer on November 3rd, 2007.

On 10 November, the Northwestern University Student Chapter hosted the "SPIE Chicago/Midwest Conference." The event was made possible with the support of an SPIE Collaborative Conference Grant and meeting space and equipment donated by the McCormick Engineering School at Northwestern University.

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Each year SPIE donates unused but unloved books to our Student Chapters. This year, we will ship an estimated 5500lbs (2500kg) of books to Student Chapters worldwide. This is one of our most anticipated fall programs and is a great opportunity for Chapter Members to gain access to valuable technical resources.

Two Collaborative Conference Grants will be available in early 2008. For schools with a short break in January or February, this is an excellent opportunity to organize an event benefiting students in your region.

Download an application and submit it by the 1 January deadline.

In 2008, SPIE Student Services will be hosting several new events including professional development speaker series, Student Chapter gatherings, off-site socials, and an increased number of student focused workshops. Join us at Photonics West (San Jose, United States) and Photonics Europe (Strasbourg, France) for fresh perspectives on entrepreneurship, career development, and skills to help you get there.

The Master of Science programme in Photonics is a multidisciplinary programme covering basic physics, material technologies, electronics and applications in different fields. Students will be trained to become specialists in the field. In addition, students will be brought in contact with European culture and languages and will get the chance to live in several European cities (Brussels, Edinburgh, Ghent, St. Andrews and Stockholm) with a long and still visible history.

Application Deadline: 15 January

Program Information
Download a Brochure  

The International School of Photonics held one of the largest student outreach events yet, hosting over 1300 students age 10 through 17 for a day of demonstrations and exhibits.

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Five new Student Chapters were approved at the Board of Directors meeting at Optics & Photonics in San Diego, California. These new Chapters join the steadily increasing population of optics / physics students. There are now 103 Student Chapters comprised of nearly 1,800 members in 19 countries.

105 Students, 11 guest speakers, 2 days, and 20 gallons of coffee later... The Student Chapter Leadership Workshop concluded with its most interactive program yet, kicking-off Optics & Photonics 2007.

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Straight from some of our best Student Leaders, learn from their experiences in  recruiting new members, energizing the Chapter, managing university politics, and more.

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Observations, words of encouragement, and a few tips from your Student Services Coordinator.

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• 1^st Place ($500): Singapore Student Chapter
• 2^nd Place ($300): Tec de Monterrey
• 3^rd Place ($200): Taurida National V.I. Vernadsky Univ.
• Honorable Mention: Univ. of North Carolina, Charlotte

$290,500 was awarded in scholarships and grants to 136 outstanding individuals and 23 educational institutions, based on their potential for long-range contribution to optics and photonics, or a related discipline. Award-winning applicants were evaluated and selected by the SPIE Scholarship Committee and approved in April by the SPIE Board of Directors' Executive Committee. For a list of the winners and information on how to apply for 2008, please visit spie.org/scholarships.

Please contact John Ballato for details.

Optical Research Associates (ORA®), Pasadena, CA, has selected the winners of their annual Student Optical Design Competition, in which awards totaling $4,000 are granted. This year, former Tec de Monterrey chapter member Manuel Guizar-Sicairos and Univ. of Arizona chapter member Joshua Jin Kim were selected as two of the top award winners. Congratulations Manuel and Joshua!

Read the official press release.

Optics in the Southeast, co-sponsored by SPIE, announces call for papers. Abstracts are to be submitted to jballat@clemson.edu electronically by Monday, August 20, 2007. Submissions need to include the title, name of author(s), and their affiliation(s), an abstract longer than 250 words, status (high school, undergraduate, or graduate) and an indication of whether or not an oral or poster presentation is preferred.

Five SPIE Student Members from the University of Arizona were awarded prestigious scholarships in recent weeks. Awards included the first ever Louise Wyant Scholarship in Optical Sciences and James M. Palmer Endowed Scholarship.

Six new Student Chapters were approved at the Board of Directors meeting at Defense + Security Symposium in Orlando, Florida. These new Chapters join the steadily increasing population of optics / physics students, bringing the total number of Student Chapters to 98.

Many current students will be instructors themselves. Here is advice on how to make that transition smoother for all involved.

You made it! You are done with your PhD and are now ready and very excited to start a promising career as an educator and a researcher. Your role has suddenly changed, and now you are the one doing the teaching. Here is some advice on making this transition…

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For many students the months of May and June signal the end of a long school year, but for newly elected Student Chapter Officers it is just the beginning. The tasks ahead of them may feel daunting at first, but with supportive Chapter Members and a few tips new officers will find the transition to be relatively easy.

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This April, over 75 students, faculty, and staff from Stanford and Berkeley participated in the first annual "Photonics @ Stanford" Day. The afternoon event featured an in-depth tour of SLAC (Stanford Linear Accelerator Center), a special seminar from the PULSE (Photon Ultrafast Laser Science and Engineering) Director Philip Bucksbaum, and a joint poster session and mixer on campus.

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Last March 8 and 9th, the 6th Symposium, Optics in Industry (SOI) took place in Monterrey, Mexico. The most important event in Mexico that links Optics and Photonics Research with Industry, takes place every two years in one of the several Optics research centers of the country. This year, the venue city was Monterrey…

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Congratulations to the Wroclaw University, Nicholas Copernicus University, and Silesian University of Technology Student Chapters for receiving the second Collaborative Conference Grant of 2007. This funding will support professional development opportunities at the Second International Student Chapters' Meeting in Wroclaw, Poland from 21 - 23 May.

The Delhi College of Engineering Chapter has created the online magazine, Opto-Informatics @ DCE to help address the need for more open-source optics resources in India. Free collaborative resources enable greater student access to peer knowledge networks that encourage sharing of ideas and networking.

Interested in contributing to Opto-Informatics @ DCE? Contact the Delhi College of Engineering Student Chapter.

Mary Masterman, a 17-year-old Westmoore High School senior from Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, was awarded a $100,000 scholarship for describing...

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The Christine Mirzayan Science & Technology Policy Graduate Fellowship Program within the Policy and Global Affairs Division of the National Academies is designed to engage graduate science, engineering, medical, veterinary, business, public policy, and law students in the analysis that informs the creation of science and technology policy and to familiarize them with the interactions of science, technology, and government. As a result, students develop essential skills different from those attained in academia and make the transition from being a graduate student to a professional.

Learn more about the program

The PS3 wonderchip does more than play games -- it saves lives

The Cell Broadband Engine is a truly versatile piece of silicon. It's inside every PlayStation 3 powering games, decoding Blu-ray movies and curing diseases with Folding@home. It's also inside a few IBM BladeCenter servers, which will soon be utilized for medical imaging. Collaborators from Mayo Clinic and IBM say that they are now using the Cell Broadband Engine to dramatically speed up the processing of 3D medical images.

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A new theoretical design using nanowires provides a way to hide devices from visible light.

A hairbrush-shaped device has been theoretically designed that would use bristles made out of nanowires to bend light around it, rendering the object invisible. The researchers who came up with the design say that it's the first practical design for an "optical cloak" to work in the visible spectrum.

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What can 1600 enthusiastic optics students do in a year? The answer might surprise you-unless you keep up on the latest chapter reports! Find out what your peers have accomplished in the last year.

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There are many reasons why students should attend conferences: to learn about new technologies from leading scientists, present original research, participate in professional development opportunities, etc. Perhaps one of the best (and sometimes forgotten) reasons is to network.

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Cali, the third largest city in Colombia, was the point of reunion for over 120 participants of the tenth National Optics Meeting and the First Andean and Caribbean Conference on Applied Optics. Old friends organize Latin-American optics conference...

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Congratulations to the Tec de Monterrey, Universidad del Valle, and University of St. Andrews Student Chapters for receiving the first Collaborative Conference Grant of 2007. This funding will support professional development opportunities at the 6th Symposium in Optics / III International Student Chapter Meeting in Monterrey, Mexico, on 8 March.

The reality of research life is that many students are unable to travel to far off conferences to present their work or attend courses. Even fewer students are exposed to career development resources that are specifically related to science and engineering. By organizing student events in their own local regions, chapters...

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In an information age emphasizing instant, yet impersonal communications, it is sometimes easy to forget how important conferences can be to student professional development. Conferences provide a venue for meaningful personal interactions between students and professionals, face to face sharing of ideas, and a way to build lasting relationships. Also, many researchers get their best job leads at conferences. As a student, how can you organize a conference at your home university and make it a success?

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The 5th Annual Student Chapter Leadership Workshop at Optics & Photonics included an all-time high of 109 students from 57 student chapters. Despite challenging travel conditions, lost luggage, and jetlag, a vast majority managed to arrive by the 8:30 am start time.

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Recent job market trends have stressed both academic achievement and strong extra-curricular involvement. Applying for a job involves not only a simple résumé/CV and cover letter, but also strong interpersonal skills and extra-curricular involvement as unwritten requirements for getting an interview.

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Tune in to Scott McCain's experience at the 2006 Congressional Visits Day in Washington D.C. Here, the focus is on science, engineering, and technology and how it relates/is incorporated into current and future policy by U.S. lawmakers.


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Carlos López-Mariscal of Tec de Monterrey interviews Dr. Eugene Arthurs on the value of networking at conferences.  Download the video (3.4MB Quicktime) or the audio (1.5MB MP3) and learn why you should try to attend at least one SPIE conference!

My vice-supervisor and I arrived in Warsaw, Poland on 27 August after a long flight from Beijing on Royal Dutch Airlines and an interchange at the Amsterdam airport. In the morning, we registered in the main hall of the Warsaw University of Technology. The Warsaw students were the main service people and I saw that they worked very professionally. What surprised me greatly about the day was...

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