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Annualreportfor2012

Kent State University SPIE student chapter

Chapter officers:

President: Volodymyr Borshch

Vice-President: Hossein Nemati

Secretary: Valerie Finnemeyer

Webmaster: Kun Gao

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Content

I) Members List

II) Activities organized

III) Detailed description of activities and events

IV) Financial

V) Conclusions and future plans

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I. Members List

Chapter Members:

Volodymyr Borshch

HsienHui Cheng

Yue Cui

Valerie Finnemeyer

Kun Gao

Emine Kemiklioglu

Andrew Konya

Israel Lazo-Martinez

Lu Lu

Alireza Moheghi

Hossein Nemati

Thanh-Son Nguyen

Anshul Sharma

Andrii Varanytsia

Feng Wang

Libo Weng

Jie Xiang

Lei Zhao

Chapter Alumni:

Hari Atkuri

Chapter Advisor:

Oleg D. Lavrentovich

Total 20 members

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II. Activities organized

So far we organized the following:

1) Chapter meeting. Officers’ election. Lu Lu presented her research.

2) Social event – Trip to the National Museum of the US Air.

3) In August 2012 Volodymyr attended SPIE Student Chapter Leadership Workshop in

San Diego.

4) Welcome to new students. SPIE chapter and our activities were introduced to new

students.

5) Student Lab Rotation Presentations – The winners were awarded with the SPIE

Excellence certificates and Prizes.

6) Student Talk series. So far we had four student talks:

a. 21 September 2012, Shuang spoke about the elasticity measurements of the

chromonic liquid crystals;

b. 28 September 2012, Andrew and Ayan spoke about the Brownian motion of

anisotropic shaped particles;

c. 5 October 2012, Vianney spoke about simulations on finite element method

for liquid crystal elastomers;

d. 19 October 2012, Young-Ki told us about the optical effects of thermally

induced flow in thermotropic liquid crystals.

7) Three outreach events:

a. 29 September 2012, together with Kenyon College, we taught 6th, 7th, and

8th graders from Knox County, OH;

b. 6 October 2012, we mentored Stanton Middle School students in Kent, OH in

preparation for the Science Fair.

c. 26 October 2012: Kent State University Child Development Center.

8) Distinguished Alumni Talk – a leading display engineer from Apple Inc. (who is a

graduate of our department), spoke about displays, and their latest developments at

Apple. He also gave us suggestions how to become successful after the graduation.

9) Joint Event with several local SPIE chapters planned for Thursday, 8 November 2012.

We will have Student Poster Competition, Lab Tour for our guests and other

activities.

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III. Detailed description of activities and events

1) SPIE Chapter meeting on 18th May 2012. Chapter members elected new officers. Lu Lu

presented her research project and we had a productive Q&A discussion section.

2) For our social event in July 2012, the chapter members, who are interested in aviation, made

a trip to the National Museum of the US Air Force on the Wright-Patterson AirForce Base,

45433 (near Dayton, OH).

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3) After attending the SPIE Student Chapter Leadership Workshop in San Diego

– the number of activities, held by our chapter, had boosted. At the

workshop, Volodymyr met Tasha Chicovsky, Alison Jones, Benjamyn

Lockwood, Dirk Fabian and others from SPIE student services. Volodymyr

networked and established connections to many SPIE student chapters

worldwide.

After coming back from the trip, Volodymyr introduces the new student activities coordinator to Kent

State SPIE student chapter.

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4) New academic year means new first year students. At the Meet-and-Greet

event on 5th September 2012, we presented our chapter and the activities we

do. The new students were quite impressed and some of them joined the

SPIE chapter immediately.

Volodymyr welcomes new students to Kent State University and introduces the SPIE chapter to them

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5) Beginning of September 2012, we held the Student Lab Rotation Presentations competition

for the first and second year students. Professors, postdocs, and students voted for the best

Presentation. First and second year students learn how to communicate their research to

the scientific community. There is an element of the competitiveness for a potential prize

and an impact on their CV.

The top voted presenters were awarded with SPIE Certificate of Excellence and recognition:

- Anshul Sharma (first place) for her presentation titled "Induction of Chiral Smectic C*

Phase by chiral dopant capped Au-NPs";

- Yubing Guo (second place) - for his presentation titled "Nano fabrication of ultra thin

liquid crystal cells"

- Andrii Varanytsia (third place) - "Lasing by cholesteric liquid crystals"

Volodymyr awards the best voted presenters

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6) Student Talk series. So far during September and October 2012, we held four events of

this activity. The main idea of this student talk series - the students presented their

research in an informal environment to other fellow students, anyone is welcome to

present, ask questions, or just listen to the presentations. Students are encouraged to

ask all kind of questions, about the research, issues, and difficulties and how those were

overcome.

- On 21 September 2012, Shuang spoke about the elasticity measurements of the

chromonic liquid crystals.

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The conference room was full – everyone wanted to listen to Shuang’s talk.

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- On 28 September 2012, Andrew and Ayan spoke about the Brownian motion

of anisotropic shaped particles. The talk was really good, but no one brought

a camera.

- On 5 October 2012, Vianney spoke about simulations on finite element

method for liquid crystal elastomers.

Students ask chirality questions, and Vianney answers.

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- 19 October 2012, Young-Ki told us about the optical effects of thermally

induced flow in thermotropic liquid crystals.

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7) We have only just started the ‘Distinguished Alumni Talk’ - a professional

development series activity aiming to answer the Question: ‘Is there Life after

Graduation?’ We invite distinguished Kent State University alumni to give a

talk about their transition from Graduate Student life to Academia or Industry

life. Alumni will describe their working/job hunting experience, what pitfall to

expect, which of the skills learned at KSU were the most vital for them.

For our first meeting of the series on 22nd Oct 2012- a graduate of our

department – we invited Cheng Chen, who currently works as a leading

display engineer for Apple Inc.

The conference room was completely full with students and faculty members who wanted to attend our

Distinguished Alumni Talk.

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Everyone wants to be in a group photo with three Rock-Stars of the World of Displays who came to visit

us from Apple Inc.

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8) Outreach. We had two outreach events recently.

Together with Kenyon College we taught school students of Knox County (OH) about

the polarization of light, polarizers and how the liquid crystals can change the

polarization state of light. After some demonstrations, each of the students

assembled their own liquid crystal cell. The students were very excited to make “one

pixel of a TV set” with their own hands.

Outreach event with the Kenyon College for the school students of the Knox County, OH

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Lei and Volodymyr help to assemble a liquid crystal cell. Students now connect wires and play with sheet

polarizers.

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The lecture in progress…

Kent State team

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The second outreach event “Brainstorming with the Mentors” – was at Stanton Middle School

in Kent (OH) on 06 October, 2012. We helped students with shaping their projects for the

upcoming Science Fair.

Volodymyr and Andrii with Sheila King (Hudson STEM Alliance) at the Brainstorming with the Mentors

Andrii Varanytsia mentors one of the middle school students for her Science Fair project

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For our third outreach on 26th October 2012, Valerie Finnemeyer Introduced 3 and 4

year olds to polarizers and birefringence at the Kent State University Child Development

Center.

We established three new activities. In total we had eleven events, during the

short period of only two months September and October 2012. Some of activities

were held weekly, some of them less often.

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9) Joint event will take place on Thursday, November 8, 2012. For the Joint

Event we invited three neighboring SPIE student chapters: Penn State

University, University of Dayton, and Indiana University of Pennsylvania.

For this event we are planning to have Student Poster Competition, lab tour

for our guests, University campus tour, lunch and fun together. We would like

to establish connections with other chapters’ members, which will last,

hopefully, through the entire professional life.

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IV. Finance

Beginning balance on 01 June 2012: $2,759.77

Received from other sources: Graduate Student Senate (GSS) of Kent State University

$50.00

Student Talk Series $139.29 Social Event $52.46 Welcome package $130.00 Welcome to new students $22.94 Lab Rotation Presentations meeting with food, awards and prizes

$80.00

Student Poster Competition preparation $16.29

Ending balance on 01 November 2012: $2,368.79

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V. Conclusions and Future Plans

Our chapter holds a proactive position in promoting optics and photonics.

The members of Kent State SPIE chapter are actively involved. We organize

professional and social events.

In the future we will continue to organize professional talk series: Student

Talks, Distinguished Alumni Talks. And competitions: Student Poster Competitions,

and Student Lab Rotation Presentations. We continue to do Outreach, and in the

near future we will be involved in the Science Fairs for school students.

Next week we are holding a Joint Event of several SPIE chapters and

student Poster Competition.

Kent State University SPIE student chapter had eleven events within a short

period of time of two month (September and October 2012). We still have

plans for more events and ideas for new activities.