Plenary and invited speakers

 

Plenary invited speakers

 

Iain McKenzie received the B.Eng. degree in electronic and electrical engineering and Masters degree in optoelectronics from the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow. Since completing his masters has worked as a research scientist at Monash University, and as an engineering contractor for the Defence Science and Technology Organisation in Melbourbne Australia, the focus of his work was on the structural health monitoring of aircraft and marine vessels. Since 2002, he has been working at the European Space Agency, in the Optoelectronic Section of The Directorate of Technical and Quality Management, based at ESTEC, The Netherlands. Today as a senior Engineer he is responsible for managing the research and development of fibre optic and photonic components for future space applications. His research interests include optical communications, optical fibre sensors, microphotonics,  optoelectronic packaging for harsh environments.

 

Dr. Xiaoyi Bao is the Canada Research Chair professor in Fiber Optics and Photonics in Physics Department, University of Ottawa, Canada. Her research interests include distributed fiber sensors and applications in for structural health monitoring (SHM), fabrication of nanofiber device, low noise fiber lasers, nonlinear optical signal processing in high precision instrumentation and sensors.  Dr. Bao has co-authored over 365-refereed journals and 271+ conference proceeding papers, and 8 patents. She is fellow of OSA and SPIE and the Royal Society of Canada and received Governor General’s Innovation Award (2021); 2 Canadian Association of Physicists Medals for Outstanding Achievement (2010, 2013).

 

Paul R. Ohodnicki is currently RK Mellon Faculty Fellow in Energy and an Associate Professor in the Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science Department at the University of Pittsburgh.  He also holds secondary appointments in the Electrical and Computer Engineering as well as the Physics & Astronomy Departments.  In his current role, he current leads more than $2M in research focused on sensor technologies and applications for infrastructure monitoring applications spanning electric power grid, natural gas pipelines, and nuclear energy waste storage with an emphasis on optical fiber sensor technology.  The work is sponsored by the US Department of Energy Solar Energy Technology Office, Nuclear Energy Office, and the National Energy Technology Laboratory as well as private industrial sponsors. Prior to his current role, he was a materials scientist and technical portfolio lead in the Functional Materials Team of the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL). He graduated from the University of Pittsburgh in 2005 with a B.Phil. in engineering physics and a B.A. in economics and subsequently earned his M.S. (2006) and Ph.D. (2008) in materials science and engineering from Carnegie Mellon University. He spent two years as a visiting research scientist at PPG Industries from 2008 to 2010 prior to joining NETL. During his time with the laboratory, he was responsible for overseeing projects spanning sensing and power electronics, with emphasis on advanced devices and enabling functional materials for photonic and wireless sensing. Dr. Ohodnicki has published more than 130 technical publications and holds more than 10 patents, with more than 20 additional patents under review. He is also the recipient of the Federal Employee Rookie of the Year Award (2012), Presidential Early Career Award in Science and Engineering (2016), the Advanced Manufacturing and Materials Innovation Category Award for the Carnegie Science Center (2012, 2017, 2019), and the R&D 100 award (2019).

 

 

Invited speakers of the topical conference on optical fibre biosensing & imaging

 

Francesco Chiavaioli received the M.Sc. degree (summa cum laude) in Telecommunications Engineering and the Ph.D. degree in Information Engineering from the University of Siena, Italy, in 2008 and 2012, respectively. In 2015-2016, he was a Visiting Scientist at ICFO (Barcelona, Spain). From 2018, he is a researcher at National Research Council of Italy (CNR), Institute of Applied Physics “Nello Carrara”. His research activities mainly encompass the ERC-related fields of PE7_4, 5 and 11, and PE4_4; in particular, the research includes optical sensors and biosensors, biophotonic platforms for molecule detection in life sciences, plasmonics, resonance-based devices, fiber-optic probes, nanomaterials for sensing/biosensing and photonic nanostructures. He is author of more than 100 publications in ISI peer-reviewed journals and in conference proceedings with H-index of 22 and more than 1800 citations (Scopus). He was inserted in "The world's top 2% of top scientists (2022)" prestigious list from Stanford University. He presented over 12 invited talks at conferences and 7 invited lectures. He was awarded Journal Cover from MDPI Biosensors (Vol. 7, No. 2, June 2017) and Outstanding Reviewer from Springer Nature (LSA), OPTICA, IEEE, IOP and MDPI. He is part of Program Committee of SPIE Photonics Europe (PE111) and of OPTICA Bragg Gratings, Photosensitivity and Poling in optical materials and waveguides (BGPP; Industrial Standardization and Applications sub-committee), is Associate Editor of Optics & Laser Technology and MDPI Optics, acts as Guest Editor in several Special Issues.

 

Prof. Dr Ir. Nathalie Vermeulen is a tenure track professor at the Faculty of Engineering of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB). She leads the Nonlinear Optics research team within the Brussels Photonics B-PHOT group. Nathalie received the M.Sc. degree in electrical engineering with majors in photonics in 2004 and obtained her PhD in 2008, both from VUB. In 2013 she acquired a Starting Grant from the European Research Council (ERC). Nathalie also coordinated a EU-funded Future and Emerging Technologies (FET) ‘Young Explorers’ project and now serves as a principal investigator in a Belgian Excellence of Science (EOS) project. Her current research activities are focused on graphene-based nonlinear optics and photonic integrated circuits.

 

Tomáš Čižmár is a professor of waveguide optics at the Friedrich-Schiller University of Jena and the head of the Fibre Research and Technology department of the Leibniz Institute of Photonic Technology (IPHT) in Jena. He leads the Holographic Endoscopy group at IPHT and the group of Complex Photonics at the institute of Scientific Instruments in Brno. Although his scientific background is Physics, throughout his scientific career he took part in a variety of inter-disciplinary projects in Bio-Medical Photonics, mostly related to optical manipulation, digital holography and microscopy. His recent research activities are focused on Photonics in optically random environments (particularly multimode fibres) and deep-tissue in-vivo imaging.

 

Invited speakers of EWOFS 2023

 

"Physical, mechanical & radiation sensing" session

 

Sylvain Girard received his PhD degree from the Université Saint-Etienne (UJM), France in 2003. He joined the Commissariat à l'Energie Atomique (CEA) in Arpajon, France, in 2004 and was a senior member of the technical staff, developing radiation-hardened optical technologies and components for megajoule class lasers. Since 2012, Sylvain is Full-Professor at UJM involved in the study of the radiation induced mechanisms in optical materials, photonic components and systems. He is now leading the MOPERE group of Laboratoire Hubert Curien. He is one of the founders of the LabH6 Joint Research Laboratory between UJM, CNRS and iXBlue (now Exail) on this research topic. He is now Section Editor-in-Chief of the MDPI journal Sensors and Associate Editor of Nature journal Scientific Reports. Since 2002, he has authored or co-authored more than 260 journal papers, four book chapters, six patents. He is the recipient of the 2013 IEEE NPSS Early Achievements Award; of the 2014 IEEE Léon-Nicolas Brillouin Award and 2021 recipient of the iXCore – iXblue – iXLife Foundation for Research.

 

Dr Sinead O’Keeffe is a Royal Society – Science Foundation Ireland University Research Fellow at the University of Limerick. She graduated with BE (hons) in Electronic Engineering from the University of Limerick in 2003 and received her PhD in 2006 from the same institute, for the development of polymer optical fibre sensors for the sterilization industry. On completion of her PhD, she worked as a Marie Curie Research Fellow in the General Engineering Research Institute at Liverpool John Moores University, developing optical fibre sensors for monitoring UV and ozone. She returned to the Optical Fibre Sensors Research Centre at the University of Limerick in 2008 and was awarded an FP7 Marie Curie Research Fellowship developing radiation dosimeters for monitoring patient doses received during radiotherapy for cancer treatment. She was Chair of COST Action TD1001, aimed at developing fibre optic sensor systems for reliable use in safety and security relevant applications in society. She was Member-at-Large of the IEEE Sensors Council for 2017-2020 and is Chair of the IEEE Sensors Council Diversity & Inclusion Committee (2020 – 2022). She is currently a Royal Society – Science Foundation Ireland University Research Fellow leading a team that focuses on the development of optical fiber based sensor systems for the diagnosis, assessment and treatment of cancer tumors. She is coordinator of the European H2020 Project “ORIGIN”, developing optical fibre based sensors for real-time dose imaging and source localisation for adaptive brachytherapy. 

 

Carlos Marques received the Ph.D. degree in Physics Engineering from the UA, Portugal, in 2013. He was a Marie Curie (MC) Fellow in the Aston Institute of Photonics Technologies, Aston University, U.K until March 2016. Currently, he is a Research Scientist (Principal Investigator) in the Physics Department & I3N, University of Aveiro, Aveiro, Portugal. His main interests include optical fiber devices for sensing, integrated optics, low cost interrogation systems, machine learning, data acquisition and optical transmission data. He authored or co-authored 3 books, 6 book chapters, 180+ journal peer-review papers, more than 100 conference papers with emphasis on optical communications, data processing and sensing. According to Google Scholar, journal/conference articles have received 5000+ citations (h-index: 51). He was an organization member of IMOC2019 conference. He was awarded with several awards. Also, he is an Associate Editor of prestigious scientific journals like OPTICA Optics Express, IEEE Sensors Journal, Opto-Electronic Advances, Optical Fiber Technology (Elsevier) and acts also as referee of several high-level international journals, receiving awards by review quality. He is a regular expert evaluator of international research projects of different countries such as Romania (UEFISCDI agency), UK (via Multiply project - Marie Curie actions), Portugal (ANI), Serbia (Science Fund of the Republic of Serbia, Fond za nauku agency) and Poland (NCN agency). He is a regular TPC member of some conferences of Optics and Photonics field, and he is regular invited to be session chairman in some international conferences. Last years, he participated/ leaded in several research projects including national projects from FCT agengy, European projects including Marie Curie actions (Individual Fellowship, ITN), FET, and other international from Brazil. Currently, he is professor of Optical Technologies topic from Physics Engineering doctoral programme, Photonics, and Sensors & Actuators from Physics Engineering Master.

 

"(Bio)chemical, medical & environmental sensing" session

 

Andrea Cusano is full Professor of Electronics, Optoelectronics and Photonics at the University of Sannio. His research interests are focused on the suitable merging of optical fibers and nanotechnologies and was the pioneer of the “Lab on fiber Technology” concept, nowadays recognized as an hot topic in nanophotonics. He published over 450 papers on prestigious international journals and communications in well-known international conferences worldwide; he has close to 20 national and international patents currently in charge of prestigious industrial companies. He is co-author of more than 70 invited chapters published in international books, invited papers, key note and plenary lectures in prestigious scientific international journals as well as international conferences. He has been past Editor in Chief of Journal of Optics and Laser Technology (Elsevier) for ten years and now is Editor in Chief Results in Optics (Elsevier). He was also cofounder of several spin-off companies focused on the development of fiber optic sensing systems for industrial and life science applications: “OptoSmart S.r.l.” in 2005, “MDTech” in 2007,  “OptoAdvance” in 2011, Mantid S.r.l. in 2017, Often Medical in 2019. In 2020, he was appointed as Technical Director of the Research Infrastructure (C-NOS: Optoelectronics and Photonics Technologies for Life Science Applications).

 

Rajan Jha is a faculty at the Department of Physics, School of Basics Sciences at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bhubaneswar, India. He leads a research program on Fiber Photonics Systems on return from ICFO-The Institute of Photonics Sciences, Barcelona, after completing his postdoctoral. He works towards the design and development of versatile optical systems by developing high-resolution fiber interferometers and their combinations-based multi-parameter interrogation systems, flexible/wearable photonic systems, cavity resonator sensors, plasmon coupled configurations, and nanoscale interaction platforms for quantum technologies. He is an inventor of 8 patents & has published more than 125 international journals; and is the author of four book chapters along with a Book. His published works have received more than 6000 citations (Google Scholar) with H Index-42. He is a Young Fellow of all the Science Academy of India and has received national-level awards/fellowships. Due to his professional accomplishment and scientific service for his continuing efforts to serve the greater optics and photonics community, he was selected as an OSA Ambassador and Senior Member of OSA in 2017. He was awarded DAAD Fellowship (2013) to visit TU Berlin as visiting scientist and the JSPS Fellowship in 2009. He is a Regular Associate of the International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP), in Italy. For his breakthrough contribution to the design and development of photonics devices and for promoting research activities in India, he was awarded 2015 ICO/ICTP Gallieno Denardo award. 

 

"(Quasi)distributed sensing & sensor networks" session

 

Miguel González-Herráez received the M.Eng. and D.Eng. degrees from the Polytechnic University of Madrid, Madrid, Spain, in 2000 and 2004, respectively. In October 2004, he was appointed Assistant Professor in the Department of Electronics, University of Alcalá, Madrid, Spain, where he was promoted to Associate Professor in June 2006. He is the author or coauthor of >120 papers in international refereed journals and >130 conference contributions and has given >25 invited/plenary talks at prestigious international conferences. His research interests cover the wide field of nonlinear interactions in optical fibers, with particular focus on distributed optical fiber sensing. Prof. González-Herráez has received several important recognitions to his research career, including two European Research Council Grants, the “Miguel Catalan” prize for young scientists given by the Comunidad de Madrid and the “Agustin de Betancourt” prize of the Spanish Royal Academy of Engineering

 

Ming Tang received the B.Eng. degree from Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST), Wuhan, China, in 2001, and the Ph.D. degree from Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore, in 2006. He conducted the postdoctoral research fellowship in the Network Technology Research Centre (NTRC) in NTU from 2006 to 2009. From Feb 2009 to 2011, he was a Research Scientist with Tera-Photonics Group, led by Prof. H. Ito in RIKEN, Sendai, Japan. Since March 2011, he has been a Professor at the School of optical and Electronic Information, Wuhan National Laboratory for Optoelectronics, HUST. His current research is concerned with the high-speed optical fiber communications, including the novel transmission fibers and the advanced digital signal processing techniques. Recently he is also interested in the integration of sensing and communication in optical fibers. He has published more than 200 technical papers in the international recognized journals and conferences (including OFC2020/2022 Postdeadline paper and ECOC2021 Postdeadline paper, cited more than 6000 times in Google Scholar, H-index 34). He has been a Member of the IEEE Photonics Society since 2001, and also a Member of the Optica. He has been awarded the NSFC Distinguished Young Scholar and Excellent Young Scholar, and the new century talent program of MOE in China.

 

"New concepts & waveguide structures and material for sensing" session

 

Prof. Salvador Sales. Head of the Fiber Sensors lab in the Photonics Research Labs at ITEAM-Universidad Politécnica de Valéncia. He has worked in optical fiber sensors since 2000, mainly using gratings, SDM fibers, and optical processing techniques. He has published over 350 papers and holds over 15 patents. He has been involved in organizing major technical events (Technical Chair in ECOC2015) and participated in several UE projects from FP5 to Horizon Europe. Also, he is a Co-founder of CalSens SL.

 

Tigran Baghdasaryan received his PhD in Engineering Sciences at Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), Belgium in 2015.  From 2016 to 2022 he was Postdoctoral Research Fellow of the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO) and became Research Professor in 2022 at VUB, where he is affiliated with the Brussels Photonics (B-PHOT) research group. He has extensive expertise in design, modelling, fabrication, characterization and prototyping of advanced optical sensors in standard and specialty fibers. His research focuses on fiber Bragg gratings, photonic crystal fiber sensors and femtosecond laser micromachining of gratings and waveguides in specialty fibers. His most recent works involve 2-photon polymerization-based direct laser writing of waveguide components and resonant structures for optical interconnect and sensing applications. He has authored and co-authored 22 peer-reviewed journal publications and more than 30 conference contributions. He is an Optica Senior Member.

 

Georges Humbert is CNRS researcher at XLIM research institute from the CNRS and the University of Limoges. He received his PhD degree from the University of Rouen (France) in 2002. During his thesis, he designed and fabricated optical fiber components. Then, he spent two years as research officer at University of Bath, where he has designed, fabricated and characterized photonic crystal fibers. In 2005, he joined XLIM research institute from the CNRS and the University of Limoges, as CNRS research officer, and since 2016 as CNRS researcher. His research activities are focused on the design, fabrication and characterisation of specialty optical fibres including solid-core, hollow-core PCF, multi-materials fibres or glass-ceramics fibres, for sensing, nonlinear optics, terahertz-waves guiding, high power delivery, and novel fibre lasers developments and applications. He is currently leading with Dr. Dinish U.S. (A*STAR) the French-Singaporean joint-lab “FiberMed” CNRS-A*STAR-Limoges University on the development of specialty optical fiber based biosensing for medical applications. He has numerous management experiences, including as principal investigator or local investigator of multiples national and international projects with academics and industrial partners.