As the new VP for Membership and Activities in Region-8 (Europe, Africa and Near-East) taking over from Silvano Donati, I am gradually settling into this role. Since LEOS is a society with the US based IEEE, it is particularly important that Region-8 views are brought to the attention of LEOS and the IEEE, and I regard it as a major part of my job to ensure that this happens. One of the ways of doing this is by communicating with the Chapter Chairs in the Region. In fact I am already working on a couple of issues which they have brought to my attention - more about this will follow when/if there are developments to report. My predecessors in the Region have been active in helping to start a number of new Chapters, so I believe that the main effort should now be on consolidation, making sure that all parts of the Region benefits from the various activities offered by LEOS. However, I will of course be happy to become involved if any reader is interested in setting up a new Chapter.
For those who do not know me, here is a brief resume:
I graduated from the Technical University of Denmark, and got my PhD in 1979. After staying on as a post-doc for some years, I was offered a job at Plessey Research Caswell in 1983 (this facility is now a part of Bookham). Having become involved in European collaborative research projects from 1988, I continued this activity on a freelance basis through my own company Gayton Photonics from the start of 1993, and I have by now been the leader of 6 of these projects.
More recently I have become involved, on a part time basis, in a couple of start-up companies: Intune Technologies based in Dublin, Ireland and Syntune based in Stockholm, Sweden. Within both of these companies I am able to pursue my main technical interest which is tunable semiconductor lasers. A book on this topic, written together with M-C Amann and D Blumenthal, has just been published by Wiley/IEEE and is sponsored by LEOS.
Finally I should mention that I am a Fellow of the IEEE, and served as one of the IEEE-LEOS Distinguished Lecturers in 1998/99 and 1999/2000.
If you want to contact me, please use: buus@compuserve.com or j.buus@ieee.org