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Annual Report
1 December 2017
Contents
1. INTRODUCTION – VISION AND GOALS p3
2. STUDENT CHAPTER MEMBERS p4
3. ACTIVITIES p5
4. FINANCES p8
5. OUTLOOK p8
INTRODUCTION – VISION AND GOALS
Since its creation in 2015 by Martin Gentile, the SPIE student chapter has chosen to focus its
aims on two main objectives. The first of these is to promote science to a non-specialist
audience, most commonly pre-university students, and the second is the professional
development of its members. In 2016, under the lead of Alba Paniagua, the society also put
its efforts into strengthening links with other SPIE Student chapters around the world. This
2017, with Erick Burgos as president, the society has taken a big step in reaching out to
more people - building a strong, organised and capable group of work. We now have a
stable monthly meeting, a weekly updated webpage and we are taking charge of bigger and
more challenging events as conferences and big outreach events. We are recruiting new
members to keep the momentum that we have gained during this year and create more
opportunities of training, outreach, and socials, which boost of skills and our professional
development.
Erick Burgos Parra
STUDENT CHAPTER MEMBERS
Committee members are elected at the AGM held in Exeter’s Spring Term. The current (2017-18) committee were elected on 17th February 2018. Our current committee members are as follows:
Position Name e-mail Address SPIE membership #
President Erick Burgos Parra [email protected] 3758450
Vice President Tom Collier [email protected]
Secretary Ben Hogan [email protected]
Treasurer Lauren Barr [email protected]
Outreach Joaquin Faneca Ruedas
Our faculty advisor is Prof. Paul Reynolds (email: [email protected])
Activities
“Scientists and Engineers Can Do Anything: How to Create Your Dream Career” by
Alaina Levine On 8th March 2017 we organized an event titled “Scientists and Engineers Can Do Anything: How to
Create Your Dream Career” by invited speaker Alaina Levine (award-winning entrepreneur, career
consultant, science journalist, professional speaker, and corporate comedienne), held at the
University of Exeter. The event consisted of a day-long workshop, covering entrepreneurial careers,
scientific writing & freelancing, developing and recognizing passion and potential, as well as the
keynote address titled as above. Our members were also invited to join Alaina over dinner as a
networking exercise.
Carrers after PhD
On 9th March 2017 we organized a non-academic career development workshop, which provided our
members the opportunity to pick the brains of several prominent local and international individuals
on careers beyond academia. This “Careers in Industry” workshop included inspiring talks from
Jeremy Govier (Edmund Optics, USA), Katherin Lau & Alastair Cropp (Zeiss), Caitlin Whybrow (NHS),
and Claire Burke (Met Office), as well as an engaging question & answer panel session, giving our
members the opportunity to raise any burning questions they had regarding different career
trajectories.
Local home-school group visiting UoE
On 4th April 2017 we participated in a workshop for a local home-school group (organized by Daniel
Hewson). The workshop hosted 15 children of varying ages, and they were introduced to a range of
physics and optics demonstrations, as well as enjoying strawberry ice cream made with liquid
nitrogen!
Norman Lockyer Observatory
On 19th January 2017 we organized a trip to the local observatory (Normal Lockyer Observatory) to
check out their big telescopes and discuss world-ending asteroids. Around 10 members from the SPIE
chapter attended this event plus 5 non-members.
Big Bang Fair 2017
On 21st June 2017 we attended the Big Bang Fair 2017 running a stand full of demos on light and
attracting great attention from the attending school children! We run a 6 hours long stand were 6
members of the chapter participated in shifts of 2 hours.
Mad Presentations
June 2017 also saw the return of the hugely popular Mad Presentations, where members of academic
staff must present on a random topic based on slides pre-prepared by our members. 4 academic
speakers participate in this event when we had more than 40 attendees.
Sidmouth Science Festival
On 15th October 2017 several of our members ran an exciting stand full of demos on
diffraction/refraction, colours and waves for the “Super Science Saturday” at the popular Sidmouth
Science Festival. Our venue was visited for more than 350 people, were we display our recently
winner activity at the Outreach Optics Games: the homemade spectrometer with a CD or DVD!
“Science and Science Fiction Film Festival”
Finally, an ongoing event that started in August 2017 is our “Science and Science Fiction Film
Festival”, where we screen science fiction films for the local science community.
SPIE Officer travel grant 2017
The president of the chapter (Erick Burgos) attended the SPIE Optics and Photonics conference 2017 held in San Diego, USA. He attended every talk of the workshop programme aimed to professional development, networking with members of other chapters around the world and experts from academia and industry. He presented us what he learnt from these talk: how to improved our leadership, presentations, outreach and research skills among other skills. . As part of all this training, there was a competition called “Optics Outreach Games”. He prepared an outreach activity called “Homemade spectrometer using a CD or DVD”. This piece of outreach equipment was aimed to create something that could be built and used by anyone (from child to teachers), at almost no cost and using recyclable materials. At the same time, this is meant to explain a real and complicated physics: light composition and diffraction. This activity competed with another 19 chapters around the world that created their own outreach activities and we won the first place. The attached photo shows Erick Burgos and Jake Mehew using the devices that won this year Optics Outreach Games and receiving their trophy.
FINANCES
Event Description Income Expenditure
Balance at beginning of Year (Dec 16)
£450.52
Grants 2017 SPIE funding £681.92
Research Group (CDT) £180
Norman Lockyer Observatory trip
Admissions (£3 per SPIE member), petrol, taxis and snacks
£210.76
Travelling Lecturer Dinner for society members and Alaina Levine
£111.00
Social Activities Barbecue £44.00
Pizza and Games Night £74.90
“Mad Presentations” Refreshments and prizes £11.65
Dartmoor stargazing trip Tent £40.00
Sidmouth Science Festival
Travel £53.10
Advertising and promotion
Refreshments £8
Total
£1312.44 £553.41
Closing balance: £759.03
OUTLOOK
Planned events:
• Send an officer to Optics + Photonics. We have asked current members if they would like to travel to one of the available conferences and, more importantly, their reason for wanting to go and how they hope this would benefit the chapter. We currently have 3 applicants, all of which want to go to Optics + Photonics, and the committee is currently in the process of deciding who to select. • Run outreach event in the city center and at local fairs in the center. We have been bringing optics to kids that come to the university events, but we want to expand these limits and take it to the street, where we can reach absolutely all kind of public.
