The IEEE Photonics Society Student Chapter at the University of Virginia

Community Outreach (debut)
In conjunction with the OSA and SPIE student chapters at UVA, the Photonics Society participated in the University's STEM outreach day. Optics demonstrations were given to local elementary school children on 26 October 2016.

The first meeting of the IEEE Photonics Society Student Chapter! Held on 27 October 2016, with a presentation by the Chapter's first President, Bassem Tossoun. Interested students were treated to pizza and coffee!

Community Outreach

The IEEE Photonics Society Student Chapter volunteered at a local elementary school. The 2nd and 3rd grade students were taught about optics, through hands-on demonstrations using the "Light Blox" kits provided by the IEEE Photonics Society.

Invited Lecturer Series: The First Invited Lecturer!
Dr. Meredith Hutchinson, from the Naval Research Laboratory, Washington D.C., gave the kick-off seminar for the Chapter, on 28 March 2017. Dr. Hutchinson gave a talk in a special series in which her journey towards becoming a researcher was presented in addition to the research she is working on.

Invited Lecturer Series
Dr. Paul Morton, the founder, C.E.O. and C.T.O. of Morton Photonics Inc., presented a seminar entitled "Photonic Integration for RF Photonics Systems." The talk was held on 14 April 2017.

Community Outreach 
The IEEE Photonics Society Student Chapter volunteered at another local elementary school, again teaching 2nd and 3rd grade students were about optics, through hands-on demonstrations using the "Light Blox" kits provided by the IEEE Photonics Society.

Invited Lecturer Series
Professor Ganesh Balakrishnan, a professor at the University of New Mexico, presented a seminar entitled "MBE Growth of High Power Optically Pumped Vertical External Cavity Surface Emitting Lasers (VECSELs)." The talk was held on 22 September 2017 and was co-hosted by the Electrical and Computer Engineering department at UVA.

Invited Lecturer Series
Dr. Shamsul Arafin, an Assistant Project Scientist at UC Santa Barbara, presented a seminar entitled "Chip-scale optical frequency synthesis based on optical phase-locked loop." The talk was held on 01 December 2017 and was co-hosted by the Electrical and Computer Engineering department at UVA.

Invited Lecturer Series
Professor Daniel Wasserman, an Associate Professor at University of Texas, Austin, presented a seminar entitled "The Mid-Infrared as an Optical Playground." The talk was held on 07 December 2017.

Invited Lecturer Series
Dr. Masahiro Nada, a researcher at NTT Laboratories, Japan, presented a seminar on the expectations and requirements for photodiodes, APDs, and optical receivers. The talk was held on 16 March 2018.

Chapter Award!
"The University of Virginia Student Chapter received the Largest Membership Increase Award for their innovative recruitment and collaboration strategies. By pairing up expos, poster contests and meetings with other cross discipline societies, like IEEE Microwave Theory and Techniques Society (MTT-S), and the parent IEEE Student Branch within the section, the chapter was able to increase their membership by 55%. New student members included undergraduates interested in #photonics, a target for the Society. The chapter is also heavily involved in #STEM and holds technical seminars for the university."

Invited Lecturer Series
Professor Lorenzo Faraone, a professor at the University of Western Australia, presented a seminar entitled, “Recent Advances in Infrared Optoelectronic Materials, Detectors, and 2-D Imaging Focal Plane Arrays.” The talk was held on 27 August 2018.

Invited Lecturer Series
Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering, Dr. Amy C. Foster from Johns Hopkins University, presented a seminar entitled, “Parametric Nonlinear Interactions in Silicon Photonics.” The talk was held on 05 October 2018 and was co-hosted by the Electrical and Computer Engineering department at UVA.

Invited Lecturer Series
Dr. Di Liang a senior research scientist/principal engineer at Hewlett Packard Labs in Hewlett Packard Enterprise, presented a seminar entitled, "Heterogeneously Integrated Photonics on Silicon." The talk was held on 28 November 2018.

Invited Lecturer Series
Dr. Stephanie Tomasulo, a Research Electrical Engineer from the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL), presented a seminar entitled, "Molecular Beam Epitaxy of Mixed Arsenide-Antimonide Alloys for Optoelectronic Applications." The talk was held on 30 November 2018, and was co-hosted by the Electrical and Computer Engineering department at UVA.

Invited Lecturer Series
Dr. Peter J. Winzer, head for Bell Labs' Optical Transmission Research efforts,  presented a seminar entitled, "Scaling fiber-optic communications: From chip-to-chip interconnects to submarine cables." The talk was held on 30 April 2019 and brought an audience of 24. It was followed by a Lunch-and-Learn session where a catered lunch was provided for students as they had the opportunity to interact with Peter.