Partial Support for the 3rd Optics and Photonics Winter School and Workshop. To Be Held at the College of Optical Sciences January 4-8, 2018

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

Optics & photonics are important areas in which there is a growing national need for work-force development. A challenge is that many undergraduate schools are focused on traditional science and engineering curricula, to the extent that their students may not be fully aware of the opportunities for pursuing a career in optics & photonics. This grant will provide support for the 3rd Optics & Photonics Winter School and Workshop to be held at the College of Optical Sciences in Tucson, AZ January 4-8, 2018. The Optics & Photonics Winter School and Workshop will be aimed at promoting, supporting, and strengthening optics & photonics education and research in the United States. The Optics & Photonics Winter School will give undergraduate students an overview of key and foundational areas of optics and photonics, and how they are intimately related to specific fields of research, in hopes of encouraging more undergraduate students to pursue a career in those fields. The Optics & Photonics Workshop will provide a forum for students and faculty members to share and/or learn of research and educational activities in optical sciences taking place at undergraduate institutions as well as broaden their awareness of career opportunities. Based on lessons learned from previous events, and in an effort to more fully utilize the unique perspective of our colleagues from PUI's, an advisory committee consisting of previous PUI participants has been formed to help with the planning for the 2018 event. The expected impact of the Optics & Photonics Winter School and Workshop falls in several areas. First and foremost, the event will promote and enhance optics and photonics education at the undergraduate level, thus encouraging more students to pursue a career in this area and making transparent the advantages of a graduate level education in an optics program. Secondly, the workshop provides faculty and students from primarily undergraduate institutes (PUI) with the opportunity to network with colleagues at similar undergraduate institutes, and with attendees from larger graduate schools and from the photonics industry. As a result, PUI faculty and students will become more effective ambassadors for the field of optics, and better positioned to encourage the pursuit of graduate level optics & photonics education. This ultimately results in a more highly skilled workforce in optics and photonics to address the technological and scientific needs of our society. We request $10k in partial support from the NSF. The positive feedback from the first two events has generated great enthusiasm within the College of Optical Sciences, among our participants from PUI's, and from various stakeholders in optics and photonics education. We have made it a priority for our College to pursue long-term financial support such that it can eventually be self-sustaining.The goal of hosting the Optics and Photonics Winter School is to give undergraduate students an overview of key and foundational areas of optics and photonics, and how they are intimately related to specific fields of research, in hopes of encouraging more undergraduate students to pursue a career in those fields. The workshop is aimed at faculty members from primarily undergraduate institutes (PUI's) as well as undergraduates attending the Winter School. The workshop will provide a forum for undergraduate students and PUI faculty members to share and/or learn of research and educational activities in optical sciences taking place at undergraduate institutions. The College of Optical Sciences hosted the 1st and 2nd Optics and Photonics Winter School and Workshop in January 2016 and January 2017, with essential core support from NSF. By most accounts, the first two winter schools and workshops were a great success. The January 2017 event brought in 54 undergraduate students for the winter school and 21 faculty from their home departments for the workshop. More details can be found in the event website, including the conference program, copies of all lecture notes from the winter school, and videos of most presentations. See http://wp.optics.arizona.edu/winter-school-workshop/. We request partial support of the January 2018 event from the NSF in the amount of $10k.