This award provides funding to support 20 graduate students, post-doctorates and non-tenured junior faculty from underrepresented groups and institutions that are traditionally short of funding for such support to attend the 4th Pacific International Conference on Applications of Lasers & Optics (PICALO 2010) to be held in Wuhan, China from March 23 to 25, 2010. PICALO is a biennial conference organized by Laser Institute of America (LIA) focusing on the growth and application of lasers and optics in the Pacific region. The goal of PICALO is to promote the collaboration between academic and industrial communities. The technical topics and research areas to be covered by PICALO 2010 are in line with the areas supported by the Division of Civil, Mechanical and Manufacturing Innovation (CMMI).
The opportunity provided by this funding will blend research and educational activities for the graduate students, post-doctorates and non-tenured faculty who attend. By participating in the conference, the graduate students, post-doctorates and non-tenured faculty will be exposed to state-of-the-art research topics and will interact with global academic and industrial leaders.
The NSF grant was used to financially assist graduate students from US institutions to attend the 29th International Congress on Applications of Lasers & Electro-Optics (ICALEO) 2010. 12 graduate students from 8 universities and institutes were supported. This event was held on Sep. 26 - 30, 2010, in Anaheim, California. Supporting the attendance of graduate students at this conference provided these future researchers with broader and better information on working areas, as well as momentum and clarity in their career pursuits. The unique approach in this project was to provide the graduate students with opportunities to learn about state-of-the-art multidisciplinary research and to interact with academic and industrial leaders in a special environment for them to explore the challenges and opportunities in the field of engineering. The 12th annual student paper award competition of ICAELO was also financially supported by the NSF grant, which highly stimulated 53 graduate student speakers from different countries. The student speakers presented their research findings and shared their innovative ideas with the audience. They had taken great efforts in preparing the reports and in practicing the presentations. Their presentations have attracted a variety of attendees and have received high praise from the audience for their enthusiasm and the excellence of their work. These future scientists and engineers considered it as a good opportunity to gain valuable experience at international conferences. The presentation and communication skills they have gained will benefit them significantly in their future careers. The students said that they have leant a lot at this conference. From the conference presentations, they have obtained the most up-to-date research progress in the field of laser applications and in many related areas; from the laser industry vending program, they have had the opportunities to communicate with engineers and experts from the industry and exposed themselves in the cutting-edge laser technologies. The Laser Institute of America also invited many industrial experts of lasers and photonics to provide a series of short courses. These short courses include "Introduction to CNC laser applications", "Laser micro applications – ablation and joining with high precision", "Lasers in manufacturing for life science and medicine", "Optimizing laser machining processes for yield and throughput in manufacturing using DOE (design of experiments)", and "User innovation communities: the key to 21st century R&D, production & marketing success". The courses have attracted great interests from the students and enriched the students’ knowledge of the state of the art in laser science and engineering. The students also celebrated the 50th anniversary of the laser, together with hundreds of laser experts, including Dr. Steven Chu (Secretary of Department of Energy, Nobel Prize Winner) and Dr. Charles Townes (Laser Inventor, Noble Prize Winner), during the ICALEO 2010 conferences. The award lectures given by Dr. Chu and Dr. Townes have led the students to a new level of perspective in the laser world, and encouraged the students to be more dedicated to their future studies of lasers and laser applications.
