SPIE President Robert Lieberman an invited speaker on knowledge and technolgy transfer, NPI

SPIE President Robert Lieberman was among 18 distinguished optical scientists invited to speak as instructors at the 2016 International School on Light Science and Technologies (ISLiST) in Spain last week.

Lieberman, president of Lumoptix (USA), explained the goals, activities and accomplishments of the US National Photonics Initiative (NPI) as part of the course.

The NPI is a collaborative alliance among industry, academia and government to raise awareness of light sciences and technologies and the need for US funding and investment in five key photonics-driven areas so that the US may remain a world leader in commercializing photonics-enabled technologies and products. SPIE is a founding sponsor of the NPI, and Lieberman serves on the NPI Steering Committee.

As a photonics entrepreneur and an expert in optical sensors and spectroscopy, Lieberman also served as a panelist during a roundtable discussion on knowledge and technology transfer. He emphasized the need for teams of optical scientists and engineers to focus on developing useful products.

Also serving on the panel were 2010 Nobel Laureate Sir Andre Geim (UK), Yasuhiro Koke of Keio University (Japan) and Shirley Kutner, founder of BioJerusalem (Israel).

The ISLiST event in Santander included five days of sessions on such topics as integrated optics, lasers, materials processing and light sciences for health applications.

SPIE Fellows Aydogan Ozcan of University of California, Los Angeles (USA) and Jürgen Popp of Friedrich Schiller University (Germany), along with SPIE members Brian Pogue of Dartmouth College (USA) and Vasilis Ntziachristos of Helmholtz Zentrum Munich (Germany), served as panelists at another discussion on biophotonics and biomedical optics.

SPIE Fellow José Miguel López-Higuera of University of Cantabria (Spain) served as director of the event, 20-24 June.

(In photo above, left to right: Lopez-Higuera, Geim, Lieberman, Kutner and Koike)

More information:

• ISLiST website  
• Press release (in Spanish)