SPIE Student Chapters

SPIE now has a total of 238 Student Chapters, having added 26 chapters and clubs in 2013 at schools such as Johns Hopkins University and University of California, Irvine in the USA; Utsunomiya University (Japan); Institute FEMTO-ST (France); and École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (Switzerland).

SPIE Student Chapters and clubs are located in 47 countries around the world and are composed of more than 6400 students who participate in optics education outreach, professional development, and leadership in optics and photonics throughout the year.

Three of the 238 SPIE Student Chapters marked 10 consecutive years of active participation in 2013.

Chapters at the Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey (Mexico), Pennsylvania State University (USA), and Wroclaw University of Technology (Poland) joined 17 other SPIE Student Chapters with at least 10 years in the program that began in 1997.

The SPIE Student Chapter at University of Central Florida (USA) claims the record, at 16 years, for most years of having at least 10 members and filing annual reports.

Other chapters that have reached the 10-or-more-years milestone at the end of 2013 are based at:

• Bauman Moscow State Technical University (Russia)
• Chernivtsi National University (Ukraine)
• Institute for Atomic Physics (Romania)
• Kent State University (USA)
• Lomonosov Moscow State University (Russia)
• N.G. Chernyshevsky Saratov State University (Russia)
• National Research University of Information Technologies, Mechanics and Optics (Russia)
• National Technical University of Ukraine (Ukraine)
• Nicolaus Copernicus University (Poland)
• Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv (Ukraine)
• Taurida National V.I. Vernadsky University (Ukraine)
• Three Rivers Community Technical College (USA)
• Tsinghua University (China)
• Universidad de Buenos Aires (Argentina)
• Vinnitsa National Technical University (Ukraine)
• Warsaw University of Technology (Poland)

"As the SPIE Student Chapter program continues to grow, we welcome new chapters from all over the world. Creating leaders in industry, government, and academics, SPIE student Chapters are involved in hosting excellent student conferences and annually inspiring thousands of students with education outreach programs," said Tasha Chicovsky, SPIE Student Activities coordinator.

"We are continually grateful to our students for their commitment to the field and their work in raising awareness and interest in optics and photonics," she said.

Members of SPIE Student Chapters are encouraged to attend one of two annual Student Chapter Leadership Workshops that SPIE organizes.

The workshops scheduled for 2014 will be held Sunday, 13 April, during SPIE Photonics Europe in Brussels and Saturday, 16 August, just before SPIE Optics + Photonics in San Diego, CA (USA).

SPIE offers travel grants for chapter officers who attend the leadership workshops. The application deadline for a grant to the Europe workshop is 15 January.

Read more about SPIE Student Chapters and member benefits.

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