SPIE University of Ottawa Chapter Annual Report Dec. 2013 ...undergrad students and other non optics/Photonics students. j. Organizing a one-day lab tours of the Optics –Photonics

SPIE, University of Ottawa Chapter 174, School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 800 King Edward Avenue, K1N 6N5, Ottawa, ON, Canada

[email protected], http://spie.site.uottawa.ca/

SPIE University of Ottawa Chapter Annual

Report Dec. 2013- Dec. 2014

New Executive Committee:

Majid Naji: [email protected], President

Parya Samadian: [email protected], Vice President

Hussein Kotb: [email protected], Treasurer

Farshad Nejadsattari; [email protected] Communication

Mitra Rahimian ; [email protected], Communication

Shi Zhu; [email protected] Communication

Dr. Trevor J. Hall: Faculty Advisor of the Chapter

The new board of the SPIE Chapter started their mandate on January 2014.

The board members met every month to achieve the Chapter’s vision of “creating

a research and entrepreneurship network and platform for our students at the

University of Ottawa” along with “more effective and interactive communication

with our members, Uottawa students”, as well as discussing and planning our

near future events and activities.

The board members started to work to achieve a common goal of introducing

optics and photonics to Uottawa students, as well as facilitating collaborations

with nearby SPIE chapters, and other optics associations. The board members

accomplished these goals by encouraging them to join the SPIE and SPIE

chapter as well as helping optics/photonics students to present their projects to

others especially in public and finding job in the local/international markets as

well as providing a friendly and dynamic atmosphere for them; to fulfill our

vision strategies the following events/workshops were organized:

mailto:[email protected]








I. Past events

a. Guest Lecture by Dr. Philip Stahl:

Known as the president of the SPIE and

for his leading edge research into optical

metrology, optical engineering, and phase-

measuring interferometry, Dr. Philip Stahl

put on a talk on June 20th 2014. This event

was tailored to a broad audience, as a

general talk on James Webb Space

Telescope. More than 200 persons were

attended the event. The event was

followed

by Q&A session and serving refreshments.



b. Solar observation event: July 21

th 2014,

A solar observation event was organized

for the engineering students at the

University of Ottawa.

This event was at solar observatory of the

University of Ottawa. In this event, the

attendees had the chance to observe sun’s

chromosphere and sunspots through H-

alpha filter, and solar ND filters, getting the

chance to observe the beauty of the sun.

c. Moon Observation Night September:

3rd

, 2014

To organize its own

astronomical observational

events, our chapter

received a Dobsonian

telescope as a donation.

To observe the beauties of

the moon, its craters and

mountains as well as

discussing about the moon-

earth system, we organized

a public moon

observational night for

Uottawa students. This event was started with some basic information about a

Dobsonian telescope and how to work with such kind of telescopes, followed by a

1 h moon observation with some explanations about the moon surface and its

orbital rotations.

d. SPIE Movie night events:

February 27th and September 29

th, 2014

To introduce the SPIE and our chapter as well as some aspects/beauties of Optics

and Physics, we organized two-movie nights at the beginning of winter and fall

sessions of 2014.

Our movie night session were started with serving refreshment followed by

introducing SPIE and our chapter, presenting a PowerPoint presentation and

distributing SPIE chapter’s handouts, and then watching movie all together. In

the Feb 2014’s movie night, we had Dr. Gigult from the department of the

Physics at the University of Ottawa a guest. Dr. Gigult presented a short talk

about the atomic clock and its structure after watching the movie “what is time”.



e. Coffee Socials

To introduce our SPIE chapter as well as providing a social and networking

opportunity for Electrical engineering and Physics students, we try to have at

least 1 to 2 coffee social events per semester.

1. The winter semester (2014) was held on March 28th, 2014. It

was joint event between our chapter, IEEE (Institute of

Electrical and Electronics Engineers) and OSA (Optical Society

of America) student chapters.

2. The fall semester was held on November 26th, 2014. It was joint

event between our chapter, IEEE student chapter, and EEGSA

(electrical engineering graduate student association) at the

University of Ottawa.

During these sessions, the SPIE organization’s vision, future events, and support

system were presented to all attendees. In each event, more than 30 students

attended.



f. Having Joint social meetings and networking events with the Carleton

university SPIE and OSA Student chapters

For planning our joint 2014 events and activities, our chapter and SPIE Student

chapter at the University of Carleton, had a social meeting, a joint New Year 2014

dinner event and joint lunch event with Dr. Stahl.



g. Organizing SPIE professional development workshops for our board

members.

To discuss more about our annual plans, having some brain storming and

introduce the SPIE and its facilities to the new board members as well as

defining the tasks of the board, each board position, and how to build a team;

we had two professional development workshops on January and November

2014.



h. Elevator pitch competition :

June 4th, 2014.

To provide a platform for the Optics/Photonics students to present their research

and its applications to their fellow students and colleagues, receive their

feedback as well as being introduced to other related researches at the

universities of Ottawa and Carleton; we organized an elevator pitch competition

among undergraduate and graduate students at the universities of Ottawa and

Carleton.

Each attendee had 5 minutes to present his/her research topics followed by a

three minutes questions and answers. An evaluation sheet was prepared and

distributed among the attendees to score each presentation and select the top

three presentations. The total number of attendees including the competitors was

20.

This event was planned and organized by our chapter and was supported by both

faculties of Engineering and Science at the University of Ottawa, providing the

prizes and the certificates for the top three winners.



i. Organizing a lab tours session for Dr. Philip Stahl, the president of the

SPIE:

June 20th 2014

A half-day lab tours session was organized to introduce different optics-related

researches at the University of Ottawa to Dr. Stahl, the president of the SPIE, as

well as introducing SPIE to University of Ottawa’s professors and graduate

students. Some uOttawa Optics and Photonics labs as well as the new photonic

research building “ARC” (Advanced Research Complex) and its new facilities

were visited.

II. Future events and plans 2015: a. Winter and fall 2015 general lectures:

Inviting distinguished professors in the field of Optics /Photonics /Astronomy to

present their research to the student and general audiences.

b. Elevator pitch and networking workshop:

Having a workshop for graduate students in Electrical Engineering and Physics,

regarding doing elevator pitch to present their research projects and their products as

well as some hints to do better networking.



c. One day student for student conference. Winter 2015:

SPIE chapter and EEGSA are going to organize a student conference by inviting all

optics and photonics graduate students at the Uottawa to present their researches in a

series of short talks to the other students. The aim of this conference is enhancing the

abilities of students to present their research works as well as presenting their

projects to the other graduate students, looking for future collaborations, knowledge

exchanges and networks.

d. Winter and Fall session movie night and social gathering:

Organizing two movie nights and social gathering events.

e. Uottawa SPIE student chapter board professional development workshop.

Winter 2014:

We will have our fourth half-day professional development workshop, regarding the

team working and leadership for the board members of the SPIE chapter in fall 2015.

f. Uottawa and CarletonU SPIE joint board meeting and New Year dinner.

Jan. 2015:

We are going to have a joint New Year dinner with the Carleton U SPIE student

chapter board members regarding planning for our 2015 joint events and

collaborations.

g. Sending one of the board members of the chapter to the next SPIE

leadership workshop in Photonics West 2015.

h. Organizing a one-day lab tours of the Optics –Photonics labs at the Carleton

University for the Uottawa students, Winter 2015.

i. Organizing Optics and Photonics lab tour at the University of Ottawa, to

introduce the Optics/Photonics researches at the University of Ottawa to the

undergrad students and other non optics/Photonics students.

j. Organizing a one-day lab tours of the Optics –Photonics labs at the Laval

University, Quebec for the students of the Ottawa and Carleton Universities,

Summer 2015.

k. Organizing at least two sky observation sessions for observing the sun and

its active regions as well as a night sky observation event.

l. Holding a half day Astrophotography workshop inviting one of the

professional Astrophotographer of Ottawa.

m. Organizing a Khet tournament and game night for electrical engineering and

physics students, winter 2015.



III. Promoting chapter a. Having a close collaboration with the electrical engineering graduate student

association (EEGSA) at the University of Ottawa and other associations to have

share events and programs.

b. Updating our website,

http://spie.site.uottawa.ca/desktop.html,

making it more interactive and user

friendly as well as posting new events

and local jobs.

c. Creating a new Facebook group page to invite Uottawa

students to join us, announcing our events, Ottawa

related events and job posts as well as sharing photos of

each event.( now we have 52 members)

https://www.facebook.com/groups/541561582585594/

d. Designing and printing SPIE chapter flyers and

distribute them in all optics and photonics related

workshops and seminars in Uottawa, introducing SPIE

and Uottawa SPIE chapter.

e. Sending mass e-mails to all students, annoncng our

public events through the departments of Electrical

Enginning and Physics.



IV. Finances

a. University of Ottawa SPIE club registration $10

b. Two movie night events, serving refreshments and Pizza, $300

c. Joint dinner with OSA and SPIE Student chapter’s at carton University, $100

d. Two professional development workshops for the board members, $180

e. Printing posters and handouts for all events, $250

f. Elevator Pitch competition (refreshments and prizes) $320

g. Dr. Stahl talk and visit (refreshments, audio/visual, technician and lunch) $1200

List of members (as of November, 2014):

1. Ahmad Al-Kabbany

2. Xiang Chen

3. Nasrin Ehteshami

4. Charalambos Kioulos

5. Hussein Kotb

6. Samuel Lemieux

7. Weilin Liu

8. Ali Momenpour

9. Neda Nabavi

10. Hamdam Nikkhah

11. Payman Rajai

12. Angelo Rajendram

13. Bhavaye Saxena

Documents

SPIE University of Ottawa Chapter Annual Report Dec. 2013 ...undergrad students and other non optics/Photonics students. j. Organizing a one-day lab tours of the Optics –Photonics