SPIE Members Making News

Two recently formed partnerships in Japan and in Europe are designed to enhance collaborations among scientists in the optics and photonics community.

SPIE and the Japan Society of Applied Physics (JSAP) recently agreed to an information exchange and other joint activities to foster strong bonds between members of both international societies. A memo of understanding signed in November will guide the two societies in cooperative ventures over the next two years.

While in Japan to sign the agreement, SPIE 2009 President Marí­a Yzuel met with a number of SPIE Fellows including Toyohiko Yatagai, a professor at Utsunomiya University and president of the Optical Society of Japan, pictured below.

Yzuel and Yatagai in Japan

In Europe, Yzuel congratulated members of the new Southern European Cluster in Photonics and Optics (SECPhO) for helping to strengthen the regional economy and encouraging innovation. SECPhO's goal is to improve the competitiveness of the optics and photonics sector in Spain and southern Europe.

"SECPhO will provide impetus for developing innovation, networks, and resources for transferring research knowledge from universities and research laboratories to industry," Yzuel said.

SECPhO is an industry-oriented cluster with a strong technological base which will promote collaborative efforts to increase international business in optics-related industries. Members include nearly 40 research institutions and companies involved with optics and photonics.

The new cluster is supported by the Catalonian government, the Spanish Department of Industry, Tourism and Trade, and the city of Terrassa. SPIE Board Member Marta de la Fuente of Indra Sistemas SA is a founding member and sits on SECPhO's Strategic Committee.

The cluster's first annual meeting and exhibition in December united about 100 participants from all over Spain. Presentations were made on strategic collaboration, high-power lasers, education and training in optics and photonics, and related topics of interest to those in aerospace, biotech, illumination, solar energy, and other photonics industries

In the United States, SPIE Members Dennis Matthews and David Benaron joined SPIE Fellow Naomi Halas in a December briefing to members of the Congressional R&D Caucus on how government can help accelerate healthcare innovation.

In Washington (left to right), SPIE Executive Director Eugene Arthurs, Halas, Benaron, and Matthews

Halas, director of the nanophotonics lab at Rice University, told the caucus about drug-free cancer therapies utilizing light and nanomedicine.

Matthews, director of the National Science Foundation's Center for Biophotonics Science and Technology and professor at the University of California, Davis, spoke on multi-disciplinary approaches to meet challenges in the life sciences and medicine. And Benaron, CEO of Spectros, talked about marketplace R&D opportunities for bioimaging, biosensing, and nanophotonics. More

In other SPIE Member news

• SPIE Fellow Harry Atwater and his colleague Nate Lewis at Caltech are leading a Dow-funded solar research project using semiconductor materials.
• SPIE Fellow David Brady, former director of the Fitzpatrick Institute for Photonics at Duke University and cofounder of Centice Corp., has been awarded an endowed professorship of engineering at Duke.
• Christopher Cotton, CEO of ASE Optics, has won the 2009 Leadership Award of the Rochester Regional Photonics Cluster.
• Valentin Gapontsev, founder of IPG Photonics Corp., received the LIA's Arthur L. Schawlow Award.
• Barry Hopkins, CEO of RAVE, recently received the 2009 BACUS Lifetime Achievement Award.
• Jin U. Kang, chair of Johns Hopkins' Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, has received $450,000 in U.S. stimulus package funds to develop a surgical imaging device that would allow for virtual biopsies in brain cancer cases.
• SPIE Fellows Burn Lin and Chris Progler joined Kinam Kim and Cheng-Wen Wu as plenary speakers at SPIE Lithography Asia in Taiwan.
• SPIE Fellow Brian MacCraith has been named president-designate of Dublin City University.
• Michael Mandina, president of Optimax Systems, was named Entrepreneur of the Year by the Rochester Regional Photonics Cluster.
• Jeroen Missinne and colleagues at Ghent University (Belgium) have developed a flexible, artificial "skin" for robots that is embedded with optical sensors. The work was carried out under the framework of the IWT project FAOS (Flexible Artificial Optical Skin) and the FP7's PHOSFOS.
• Professor Winston Schoenfeld and the University of Central Florida are getting a $7.5 million research grant to study ways to make photovoltaic cells more efficient in capturing and converting solar energy into electricity. The grant is from Prime Source Initiative, Inc.
• Ken Solinsky, president of Insight Technology Inc., was named the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year 2009 national winner in the distribution and manufacturing category.
• Harvard Professor Xiaoliang Sunney Xie has received the E.O. Lawrence Award in Chemistry.
• SPIE Fellow Xiang Zhang is leading a team at the University of California, Berkeley, that has devised an acoustic hyperlens that could increase higher-resolution ultrasound imaging for medical uses and structural monitoring.