This award is to support undergraduate students attending and participating in the Laser Science XXIX Conference, October 6-11, 2013 in Orlando, FL. Specifically, the students present their research in the "Symposium on Undergraduate Research" on Monday Oct 7, 2013. Previous years' programs are at www.aps.org/units/dls/meetings/symposium/index.cfm. The intellectual merit of this project is that the undergraduate students present and disseminate the results of the research, many from NSF-supported REU programs.
The broader impact is to provide the opportunity for these young students to attend a national meeting of this stature and give their first public talks. A secondary benefit arises because collaborations among them are often born in these sessions since very often students in different universities are involved in similar projects. A third impact is to initiate networking among these students that will be vital to their future careers as professional scientists, and to encourage them to continue along such a career path.
The thirteenth annual DLS Symposium on Undergraduate Research at LS-XXIX took place in Orlando, FL on Monday, 7 October, 2013. The Symposium has grown from ten presentations in 2001 to forty-two this year on projects done at about 30 universities or research institutes in the US and Europe. These Symposia have brought nearly 400 students to our annual meeting to present what are often the first research papers of their budding careers. Programs, articles, further information, and photos from past symposia can be found at the DLS website www.aps.org/units/dls/meetings/symposium/ The 2013 Symposium began with a buffet-style welcome dinner on Sunday evening, 6 October, at the Wyndham Resort Time Share near the Wyndham Grand Orlando hotel where most of the students were housed. This was an especially convenient location because the students who arrived at any time during the evening could check into the hotel and then go directly to the dinner. The FiO/LS conference events began Monday morning with Plenary Session talks by several outstanding people, including the new OSA Honorary Member Donald Keck. Nobel Laureate David Wineland was prevented from attending by the government shutdown, but his talk was presented by his protégé Chris Monroe. Our Symposium events began at noon with a sandwich lunch for its participants and honored guests, who included several of the speakers at the Plenary-Prize session earlier in the morning. The students were especially fortunate this year to have so many of the prize recipients meet and talk with them during the lunch. Highly visible attendees besides Bob Alfano and Margaret Murnane were Henry Kapteyn (DLS chair), Lou Dimauro (Meggers Award), Nergis Mavalvala (MIT, LIGO leader), Anne Kelley (DLS Sec’y-treasurer), Peter Delfyett (conference co-chair), Grover Swartzlander, and mentors Jenny Magnes, Samir Bali, Chris Greene, and others. We heard inspiring remarks and lively discussion from several of these distinguished guests. The Symposium events began with the poster session in the well-positioned ballroom foyer where many of the conference attendees stopped by to talk with the student presenters. The session included 33 papers whose abstracts were published in an eight-page program (copy attached) and ran from about 12:30 to about 3:00. It was presided by Prof. Anne Kelley from Univ. California Merced who is the , DLS Secretary-Treasurer. The entire area was abuzz with conversation and discussion as the delighted presenters talked about their work to interested scientists and fellow students. The poster session ended with a brief break for a group photo that was taken on the stairs adjacent to the foyer. The oral presentation sessions began at 3:00 and lasted until almost 6:00. The first one, with five talks, was presided by Prof. Samir Bali, Miami University of Ohio, and the second one, with four talks, was presided by Prof. Jenny Magnes of Vassar College. Besides students and mentors, the audience included quite a few regular conference attendees over the course of the afternoon. (These attendees may have learned about the session from the programs included in their registration package, or from announcements at the plenary session.) The quality of the talks was uniformly very high, and the two oral sessions were an unqualified success. Students enjoyed snacks between the sessions, courtesy of one of our corporate sponsors, Thorlabs. A sign board with logos of all the corporate sponsors was prominently displayed at all Symposium meals and sessions. It was gratifying that these very young scientists could give their first presentations at a professional meeting, and it was clearly a memorable event for them. About 1/3 of this year's presenters were female, a fraction comparable to the national average among undergraduate physics students. Many of the students were thrilled to meet famous and/or highly visible scientists, including the authors of some of their textbooks. Judging from the enthusiastic notes that accompanied their final expense reports, the student participants will surely remember this opportunity throughout their professional lives. Some of the comments were: "The symposium was a big hit, and they [students] really couldn't stop talking about it on campus this past week. It's really amazing how much of a positive effect it has on the students, not to mention a fine way to spread the word about neat things going on at places like Bates!" "The symposium was an amazing experience and one I will never forget. It was a life changing and unique experience to present my research at a national conference and meet people from around the globe. I really appreciate all of your hard work." "I wanted to thank you again for a wonderful conference. I really enjoyed my time, and it was an amazing opportunity." "It was a really invaluable experience for me and I had a great time. It was a pleasure to present my work and listen to other students and scientists in the field."
