Schedule
21 - 24 September, 2024
Colorado Convention Center
Denver, Colorado USA
The goal is to introduce 50 Black physics and engineering undergraduate or first year Master’s students annually to the research and career opportunities in optics and photonics and to the Optica community.
Following is a general overview of the program timeline and description.
Program Timeline
The program will run 21-24 September (4 days and 3 nights) co-located with the Optica annual meeting Frontiers in Optics:
- Saturday, 21 September – arrival and networking event
- Sunday, 22 September – Immersion programming, Student Leadership plenary and party
- Monday 23 September – FiO/Student Leadership programming, DLS Symposium on Undergraduate Research
- Tuesday 24 September – show floor tour, Plenary and departure
Program Description
Time will be split between programming designed specifically for this group, joint activities with the Optica Student Leadership program, and attending FiO talks and programming. The activities for the Immersion attendees will include:
- Overview of optics and photonics research, technologies and career opportunities.
- Introduction to Optica and of FiO technical program and special events with programming on getting the most out of the experience.
- Participation in the DLS Symposium on Undergraduate Research
- Participation in FiO activities including small group guided tours of FiO exhibit floor and the opening Plenary talk.
- Informal networking activities and meals
Schedule and speakers subject to change.
How to Attend a Conference
Christina Willis, Virtuous Cycles LLC
10:00 - 11:00 ET
*This is the first of three time slots provided to Student Leadership and Amplify attendees. This session will be held on Zoom and a link will be provided to you by 15 August.
Conferences can be overwhelming, with so many people and so many events happening simultaneously. What’s the best way to navigate a conference? In this workshop, participants will develop their own system for planning and optimizing their conference attendance. This ranges from how to draft and execute a conference schedule to how to plan for and practice self-care. Concepts include:
- Advance mapping and scouting of the conference center and surrounding area to be efficient in your movements and identify good places for meetings, coffees, and meals
- Business cards: to have or not to have and how to use them
- Planning personal meetings in advance
- Reviewing the conference schedule and building out a plan for talk, exhibit, and reception attendance (including where those are physically and cross-referencing with the mapping/scouting step)
- Identifying desired new connections (particularly authors/presenters that can be found at a conference) and how to meet famous people
- Identifying desired educational courses and professional development opportunities
- Scheduling in self-care: diet, exercise, and recovery
- Executing the planning:
- Navigating poster sessions
- Navigating receptions
- Navigating the exhibition
- Asking questions at presentations and meeting authors
- Serendipitous encounters
- Following up
How to Attend a Conference
Christina Willis, Virtuous Cycles LLC
18:00 - 19:00 ET
*This is the second of three time slots provided to Student Leadership and Amplify attendees. This session will be held on Zoom and a link will be provided to you by 15 August.
Conferences can be overwhelming, with so many people and so many events happening simultaneously. What’s the best way to navigate a conference? In this workshop, participants will develop their own system for planning and optimizing their conference attendance. This ranges from how to draft and execute a conference schedule to how to plan for and practice self-care. Concepts include:
- Advance mapping and scouting of the conference center and surrounding area to be efficient in your movements and identify good places for meetings, coffees, and meals
- Business cards: to have or not to have and how to use them
- Planning personal meetings in advance
- Reviewing the conference schedule and building out a plan for talk, exhibit, and reception attendance (including where those are physically and cross-referencing with the mapping/scouting step)
- Identifying desired new connections (particularly authors/presenters that can be found at a conference) and how to meet famous people
- Identifying desired educational courses and professional development opportunities
- Scheduling in self-care: diet, exercise, and recovery
- Executing the planning:
- Navigating poster sessions
- Navigating receptions
- Navigating the exhibition
- Asking questions at presentations and meeting authors
- Serendipitous encounters
- Following up
Afternoon Arrivals & Hotel Check-In, Sonesta Denver Downtown
17:30 – 19:00 Welcome Reception, Lockwood, Sonesta Denver Downtown
07:30 – 08:30 Breakfast, XXX, Colorado Convention Center
08:45 – 09:00 Welcome, Room 3G-H
Marcia Lesky, Sr. Director Diversity & Foundation Programs, Optica, USA
09:00 – 09:30 Introductions & Kick-off with Master of Ceremonies
Kenneth Barber, Edmund Optics, USA
09:30 – 10:30 Enabled By Optics
Biomedical Optics – Caroline Boudoux, Polytechnique Montréal, Canada
Fabrication Design & Instr. Div Chair: Jannick Rolland
Info Acquisition Processing and Display Division Chair: Hong Hua
Optical Interaction Science Division Chair: TBD
Photonics & Opto-electronics Division Chair:TBD
Vision & Color Chair: Brian Vohnsen
Sensing Division Chair: Adam Fleisher
10:30 – 11:00 Break
11:00 – 12:00 Keynote 1
William Wilson, Harvard University, USA
12:00 – 13:00 Keynote 2
Julianne M. Pollard-Larkin, University of Texas, M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, USA
12:30 – 14:00 Networking Lunch
14:00 – 15:00 Opportunities in Optics
Room 3G-H Anoopoma Bhowmik, Edmund Optics, USA
Mamadou Dio, Lawson Health Research Institute, Canada
Marla L. Dowell, NIST Boulder, USA
Jhonattan Cordoba Ramirez, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Brazil
15:00 – 16:00 Illuminating the Path: From Ghana to Global Impact in Optics & Photonics
Herbert Winful, Univesity of Michigan, USA
16:00 – 16:30 Break
16:30 – 17:30 Being Black in STEM
George Okyere Dwapanyin, University of St Andrews, UK
Timothy Oshiobughie Imogore, Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena, Germany
Joshua Burrow, Brown University, USA
Ivy Krystal Jones, Hampton University, USA
Jhonattan Cordoba Ramirez, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Brazil
17:30 – 18:00 Small Group Project Overview & Assignments
George Okyere Dwapanyin, University of St Andrews, UK
18:00 – 18:30 What’s Next?
Kenneth Barber, Edmund Optics, USA
18:30 Joint Student Leadership Dinner
07:30 – 08:30 Breakfast, Bluebird Prefunction
08:00 – 8:30 Breakfast Talk: A Word About Frontiers in Optics from the Chair
Andrew Forbes, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa
08:30 – 12:00 Small Group Project Work Time – see the project page for details
12:00 – 13:00 DLS Symposium on Undergraduate Research Joint Lunch & Programming, Room TBD
13:00 – 16:30 Small Group Project Work Time – see the project page for details
16:30-18:00 Small Group Project Report Out, Room 3G-3H
18:30 – 19:30 Joint Dinner DLS Symposium, Ace Eat Serve, Ping Pong Room, 501 East 17th F Street
07:30 – 08:30 Breakfast, Bluebird Prefunction
08:00 – 8:30 Breakfast talk: FiO Science & Industry Showcase
Tom Hausken Optica Science Advisors & New Business Development, USA
09:15 - 10:00 FiO Virtual Reality and Augmented Vision Visionary Session, Room 3A
The Transforming Landscape of Augmented Reality
Presenter: Matthew Colburn, Meta Tech - Reality Labs Research
10:00 – 11:30 FiO Plenary Talk: Using Light Absorption and Laser Speckle Dynamics
to Measure Human Brain Function, Plenary Stage Exhibition Floor
David Boas, Boston University, USA
11:30 – 13:00 FiO Poster Session 1, Exhibit Floor
Afternoon Departures – note hotel check out is 11:00
