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Annual report for 2016

Chapter officers:

President: Vinay Joshi

Vice-President: Shokir Pardaev

Secretary: Kai-Han Chang

Treasurer: Matthew Murachver

Our web-site: http://dept.kent.edu/spie/

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Content

I) Members List

II) List of organized activities

III) Detailed description of organized activities and events

IV) Financial report

V) Conclusions and future plans

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I. Members Roster

Chapter Members:

Afsoon Jamali

Leah E. Bergquist

Vinay Joshi

Zoltan Karaszi

Kai-Han Chang

Xiangxiong Kong

Sanjoy Paul

Shokir Pardaev

Bingxiang Li

Sahil Sandesh Gandhi

Cheng Cheng

Jie Xiang

Andrii Varanytsia

Chapter Advisor:

Oleg D. Lavrentovich

Total 14 members

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II. Activities organized

In 2016 we have organized following events and activities:

1) Chapter meetings.

2) Lab research competition.

3) Student & invited speakers talk series.

4) Social activities

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III. Detailed description of activities and events

Chapter’s meetings

1) SPIE chapter officer election was held on September 7th 2016. Shokir Pardaev shared his experiences from recently attended SPIE Leadership Workshop held at San Diego Convention Center, San Diego CA, USA during Summer 2016. New elected officers are: President – Vinay Joshi; Vice-president - Shokir Pardaev; Treasurer – Matthew Murachver; Secretary – Kai-Han Chang. Meeting attended students from the Liquid Crystal Institute, Physics Department, and Kent State OSA and SID student chapters. All attendees were welcomed with complimentary pizza

2) A meeting with chapter officers’ is scheduled in the month of October 2016 to discuss the plan of activities for year 2016-17

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Lab research presentation competition

This year our SPIE student chapter awarded 1st or 2nd year graduate students who made presented their research to peers, professors and general public during Lab Research Presentation at the end of semester. The award was announced in advance and motivated speakers to increase quality of their presentation as well as stimulated competition. We gave prizes the best speakers in Fall 2015 (on December 11th), Spring 2016 (on May 6) semesters. Each time two best speakers selected by anonymous voting of the audience received certificate and an annual membership.

Student & invited speaker’s talks

This year our SPIE student chapter continued organizing student talks at the Liquid Crystal Institute of Kent State University. These events provide members of the SPIE chapter with an opportunity to publicize results of their scientific research and practice public presentation.

Similarly, we invite speakers from industry and visiting scholars from other universities to introduce topics of their work to members of the SPIE student chapter at Kent State

University as well as all other interested students.

We typically organize talks during the lunch time and provide pizza and drinks for participants encouraging current members to participate in chapter’s life and new members to join our SPIE chapter.

Some of talks event attract a few of faculty members, but all events are conducted in an informal atmosphere enabling comfortable discussion for people with different

backgrounds.

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On November 19th 2015 Cheng Cheng presented his scientific research project about Torsion pendulum observation of angular momentum in liquid crystals. There was a good little crowd of students interested to learn more about accurate opto-mechanical

measurements with liquid crystals.

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On December 12th, 2015 Jagat Budhathoki presented to the audience of our SPIE student chapter his dissertation research about single molecule FRET and its applications. All attendees were welcomed with complimentary pizza lunch with drinks

sponsored by our SPIE, OSA and SID student chapters.

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On March 23rd 2016 Andrii gave a talk about bistability and photoswitching phenomena of the bubble domain texture of cholesteric liquid crystals. Students and few faculty enjoyed the presentation and the discussion afterwards.

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On April 4th 2015 Leah Bergquist presented approaches used in chemical synthesis to influence phase properties of bent-core liquid crystals. All students enjoyed both the fundamental science motivating techniques chemist use to engineer desired performance of liquid crystal materials and the pizza lunch provided by the SPIE, OSA

and SID student chapters.

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On April 27th 2016 Dr. Zhixue Shen from Chinese Academy of Engineering Physics,

China gave an outstanding introduction about methods to measure refractive index and

birefringence of optical materials. Everybody learned something new and many stayed

for a discussion afterwards the talk.

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On May 11th 2016 Yubing Guo presented his latest research project advancing

plasmonic photo-patterning of complex fields of the liquid crystal director. Everybody

was intrigued by the efficiency of Yubing’s photo-patterning technique and complexity

of accurately produced topological configurations of the liquid crystal layer. Traditionally,

all participants were welcomed by a pizza lunch provided by SPIE, OSA and SID student

chapters.

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Social activities

On May 14th members of SPIE student chapter gathered in Akron OH for social event marking the end of spring semester. We played couple rounds of laser quest game and discussed future activities of the chapter during the lunch afterwards. We also organized a BBQ dinner with get-together of alumni of liquid crystal institute from industry and academic world sharing their experience with students.

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IV. Financial report

Beginning balance on 30 September 2015: $ 2,356.67

Expenses:

Lunch Seminar talks refreshments Free membership to seminar speakers Social events

$259.23 $ 90.00 $144.96

Ending balance on XXX October 2016: $ 1862.48

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V. Conclusions and Future Plans

Our chapter holds a proactive position in promoting optics. In our activities we

often team-up with Kent State University OSA and SID chapters. The members of Kent

State SPIE chapter are actively involved in organized professional and social activities.

In the next year we will continue to conduct student and invited speaker’s

professional talk series, student research competitions and social activities for members

of the chapter. We also plan to organize some social outreach programs like exhibition for high

school students demonstrating simple optics and photonics experiments to attract more

students towards field of optics and photonics.