U.S.-Finland Planning Visit: Cooperative Research and Education Activities in Integrated Access Networks

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Through this planning visit, U.S. Principal Investigator Arlene Maclin of Morgan State University, along with colleagues from the University of Arizona, will develop international cooperative research and education activities with partners at Aalto University of Science and Technology, in Finland. Her distinguished counterpart, Seppo Honkanen with Aalto's Department of Microelectronics, will head the collaboration on the Finnish side. Results from their planned longer-term interaction should improve our computational studies and fundamental understanding of magneto-optical materials and may lead to new, stimulating models for providing U.S. undergraduate students with early international research experience in fiber-optics. Furthermore, the follow-on activities are expected to complement and strengthen on-going research and education activities supported by the National Science Foundation at the University of Arizona based Engineering Research Center for Integrated Access Networks (CIAN), directed by Nasser Peyghambarian. This planning effort fulfills the program objective of advancing our knowledge of optical access networks and subsystem integration by enabling researchers in the United States and Europe to share resources and expertise in areas of mutual interest and competence. The U.S. team's strengths in optical communication systems offer an excellent complement to those of the Finnish partners in photonics. Together, their goal is to work toward transformative technologies for optical access networks while preparing the up-coming generation of engineers for problem solving in team-based, multidisciplinary, international research environments. Broader impacts include a heightened ability to provide opportunities to explore careers in optical and electronic engineering to underrepresented minority students and faculty from Morgan State University and other U.S. institutions. Long-term success could contribute to a more diverse engineering workforce and to innovative, interdisciplinary system-driven designs, such as biosensing systems for monitoring the impact of environmental pollutants on ecosystems.