Université Laval

Activities Report

2008-2009

Organizing committee for the first edition of the “Jeux Photoniques”

About Us Our chapter is composed of 22 graduate students at Université Laval, Québec, Canada. Combined with Université Laval’s OSA and CIPI-S student chapters we form what is called REPOL (Regroupement des Étudiants en Optique et Photonique à Laval) and represent over 150 graduate students in optics and photonics. Our laboratories and offices are located in the optics building at Université Laval. Our website is constantly growing: www.repol.copl.ulaval.ca. We also have a Facebook group, but it is not very active at the moment.

Chapter Officers The list of officers presented here is for 2008-2009. There will be elections for the upcoming year in mid-September.

Gabrielle Thériault President, SPIE Chapter gabrielle.theriault.1@ulaval.ca

Véronique Zambon President, OSA Section veronique.zambon.1@ulaval.ca

Joannie Lévesque VP for undergraduates joannielevesque@hotmail.com

Guillaume Goubert Multimedia Officer guillaume.goubert.1@ulaval.ca

Alexandre April Communications Officer alexandre.april.1@ulaval.ca

Azadeh Naderian Secretary & Treasurer azadeh.naderian.1@ulaval.ca

Prof. Réal Vallée Chapter Advisor rvallee@copl.ulaval.ca

Current student chapter members

Name Expires 1. Moulay Akhloufi 6 March 2010 2. Guillaume Androz 30 November 2009 3. Alexandre April 31 August 2010 4. Anne Barichard 31 March 2010 5. Seydou Bassene 30 November 2009 6. Nabila Bouzida 30 September 2009 7. Joel Crepeau 22 February 2010 8. Bernard Dery 30 November 2009 9. Rami El Sawda 31 October 2010 10. Dominic Faucher 31 December 2009 11. Gilles Fortin 31 October 2009 12. Guillaume Goubert 20 January 2010 13. David Helie 6 April 2010 14. Clemente Ibarra-Castanedo 31 March 2010 15. Joannie Lévesque 4 May 2010 16. Azadeh Naderian 31 May 2010 17. Alex Paquet 7 January 2010 18. Jocelyn Parent 30 June 2010 19. Bruno Roy 30 April 2010 20. Karen Samson 22 February 2010 21. Gabrielle Thériault 31 January 2010 22. Véronique Zambon 30 June 2010

Activities in 2008-2009 Collaborative Conference: Photonics ToolkiT "Photonics ToolkiT" consisted in 3 days of conferences and workshops for graduate students in optics-photonics. Held in Quebec City from March 5 to 8 2009 at the Center for Optics, Photonics and Lasers (COPL, Laval University), Photonics ToolkiT attracted over 60 graduate students in optics from ten universities in Canada and the United States. Participants got the opportunity to meet and talk about their research, assist conferences and participate in various workshops. They also got to meet optics-photonics industry representatives for an evening. We organized this event with the help of the Montreal SPIE and OSA Chapters, as well as the CIPI-S network. This event was sponsored by an SPIE collaborative conference grant, a few local optics companies, Université Laval, CIPI, CIPI-S and OSA. Details can be found here: www.repol.copl.ulaval.ca/toolkit

Outreach Activities: Girls and science For the second year in a row, we participated in "Les filles et les sciences", an annual day of scientific activities to promote science for high school girls. On February 28 2009, we had a kiosk with optics-photonics demonstrations and did two one-hour workshops on optics. About 100 girls visited our kiosk, which contained demonstrations of fluorescence, how lasers work, NEMO EduKits, and spherical mirror tricks. The workshops were carried out with 20 girls and 6 accompanying adults (most of them high school teachers), and were hands-on demonstration of a wide variety of optics principles, using the Hands-on-Optics Telescope kit, NEMO EduKit, Liquid crystal mood patch kit and a refractive index experiment kit. Funding for this activity came from OSA and SPIE. Photonic Games "Les Jeux photoniques" is a scientific competition during which teams of high school students oppose each other in a series of optics-photonics challenge. Before this competition, one-hour workshops about optical components are given to these students in their school. As for "Photonics ToolkiT", we organized this event with the Montreal SPIE and OSA Chapters. For the first edition of this event, 60 grade 12 students from two high schools in an underprivileged area of Quebec City participated, and 5 students from the Montreal Chapters came to help out. More details can be found here: www.repol.copl.ulaval.ca/jeux. This event was sponsored by an SPIE outreach grant, a few local optics companies, Université Laval, CIPI and OSA. Student paper contest: REPOL/COPL Grant The second edition of the student paper contest was carried out in November-December 2008. A jury composed of two professors and one post-doc evaluated four student papers. Each candidate gave a 20-minute talk about his or her paper. The prize was a 500$ grant, half of which was donated by the COPL. Visiting Lecturer In October 2008, Melissa Marshall gave a 4-hour workshop on how to make a good scientific presentation (Michael Alley’s “Craft of Scientific Presentations”). We also used the OSA visiting lecturer program to invite Philippe Lalanne, research director at the Laboratoire Charles Fabry de l'Institut d'Optique, France.

Social Activities To encourage networking amongst students, professors and staff, we try to offer a social event every one or two months. This year, most of our efforts were oriented towards Photonics ToolkiT and the Photonic Games, but we still held a few events. We had a bridging evening where grad students and undergrads were encouraged to interact; we also organized the cocktail for the 20 years of the COPL, the Christmas party evening and an end-of-summer 5 to 7 at the university pub (the “beer+nachos+sun=5to7 at the pub” campaign gave excellent results!). Food and drinks were provided by our chapter.

Upcoming activities for 2009-2010 Outreach activities The second edition of Photonic Games is coming up at the end of October 2009, and we will have around 100 participants, so a few management issues are popping up as more groups will be doing each challenge at the same time. We also plan on participating in "Les filles et les sciences" once again next February. Collaborative conference With the remaining money from Photonics ToolkiT, we will send a few students to IONS-NA and a chapter officer to Frontiers in Optics. We also plan on throwing a party in a chalet with the Montreal Student Chapters and inviting an extra speaker. Industrial Visits Last year, we did not organize industrial visits, but we have one planned for the end of September. We will visit TeraXion and provide transportation to all students wishing to participate. We also wish to organize visits to 2 or 3 other companies throughout the year, and maybe a full-day of visits in Montreal too. Social Activities Ideas for upcoming social activities include a Karaoke night, a Khet tournament (planned for September 1st, if we receive the games by that date!) and a multicultural potluck dinner where everyone will bring food from their native country. REPOL/COPL Grant, 3rd Edition We will organize the student paper contest based on the way it worked last year.

The COPL has agreed to help us out and give 250$ as they have done in previous years.

Financial information All amounts in the following tables are in Canadian dollars.

Income Outcome Beginning Balance 2369 Jeux Photoniques 2008 SPIE Outreach Grant 2650 Industry sponsors 1150 Academic sponsors 2650 Transportation 552 Food 975 Material 1720 T-shirts 912 Animation 160 Prizes 1441 6450 5760 Photonics ToolkiT 2008 SPIE Collaborative Conference Grant 3036 SPIE Sponsorship (Travel Grants) 1204 OSA Activity Grant 1183 CIPI Grant 6181 Industry sponsors 2800 Academic sponsors 3900 Government sponsorship 1500 Registration fees 5250 Travel Grants 4800 Local transportation 282 Food + room rental 10810 Food for volunteers 826 Promotional material 3869 25054 20587 Les Filles et les sciences Material 545 OSA Activity Grant 593 593 545

Other Dinner with invited speaker 216 Membership reimbursment 181 Speaker stipend (M. Marshall) 500 Christmas Party 256 Grad-undergrad bridging 241 SPIE Chapter poster 64 summer cocktail 310 REPOL/COPL Grant 250 SPIE annual Chapter Grant 1067 1067 2018 Ending Balance 6575