The 5th Annual Careers in Research Forum & Reception

Abstract: Photonics is frequently described as an ‘underpinning technology', meaning it is pervasive in products of all kinds, including consumer, medical, industrial and military products. Involvement in photonics is considered vital for both developed and developing economies. Despite this, the sector as a whole is characterized by low profitability. Analysis of historic company valuations demonstrates low profitability is not a new phenonemon, but has become worse during the current recession.

The reasons for the underlying profitablity levels and the effects of the recession will be analysed. Strategies for combatting the effects of the downturn in the market will be discussed from the perspective of an SME. Market analysis, agility and a willingness to develop new business streams are crucial elements of the strategy.

Biography: John Marsh is Professor of Optoelectronic Systems at the University of Glasgow and Chief Technical Officer and Board Director of Intense Ltd, a company he co-founded in 2000. He has extensive experience of operating in academic and high-technology industrial environments, coupled with an excellent understanding of spinning out IP and creating commercial value from an academic base.

Biography: Tobias Kippenberg was born in 1976 in Berlin. He obtained his BA in Physics and Electrical Engineering at the Technical University of Aachen in Germany. He obtained his Master of Science (2000) and PhD (2004) at the California Institute of Technology in the group of Kerry Vahala pioneering a new class of ultra high microresonators on a chip. After he postdoctoral stay at Caltech, he was appointed head of an independent Junior Research Group at the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics in 2005 in the Division of Novel Laureate T.W. Haensch. In 2009 he obtained his Habilitation at the LMU Munich University for his research which demonstrated cooling of mechanical oscillators using laser fields and for his work on generating optical frequency combs with microresonators. Since 2008 he has been appointed tenure track assistant professor at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL) where is currently leading the Laboratory of Photonics and Quantum Measurements. Kippenberg is recipient of the EU Contest of Young Scienstists (1996), the Fresnel Award from the EPS (2009) and the Helmholtz Award (2009). Moreover he his author of more than 41 publications (h-index 21).

Abstract: Academic life is fun in many ways and brings satisfaction to your way in different aspects, but it may also have its own challenges along with different opportunities. Academic career typically necessitates a number of technical skills and management abilities that may or may not have developed over the years at the graduate school while pursuing a PhD degree. For example, identifying scientific problems to work on, designing a scientific research program and technical work plan, establishing new labs, independent operation of a research group, finding funding sources for the group and the lab, and time management between different tasks and responsibilities might be new in the early years of an academic career.

In my case, for my transition from graduate school at Stanford University to an academic career, I have found out that a number of different scientific tasks and technical activities in which I was involved as a graduate student (in the D. A. B. Miller Group at Ginzton Lab and Stanford Nanofabrication Facility) provided me with excellent guidelines and working models years later when I became a faculty member at Bilkent University. Now looking back, for most of these tasks and activities, of course I did not know at the time in what ways their returns will be and how significant a role they will play for my academic career many years later. I am sure many of us and senior colleagues share similar experience. And of course we still continue to make similar observations, as academic career itself is an ongoing process and learning experience. To this end, in this talk I will present my journey and experience as a young scientist in transition from graduate school to academic career and discuss some pointers that I learnt over the years, some of which might come handy for those who are interested in an academic career and those who supervise and/or mentor them.

Biography: Hilmi Volkan Demir received his B.Sc. degree in electrical and electronics engineering from Bilkent University in 1998, and his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from Stanford University in 2000 and 2004, respectively. He received his Docent title (assoc. prof.) in optics and photonics from the Turkish Council of Higher Education in 2007. Since September 2004, he has been working as a faculty member at Bilkent University, where he holds joint appointments at the Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering and at the Department of Physics. He is the Associate Director of Nanotechnology Research Center (NANOTAM). He also serves as a faculty member of the Advanced Research Laboratory (ARL) and the Institute of Materials Science and Nanotechnology (UNAM).

At Bilkent, he is the founder and principle investigator of the Devices and Sensors Research Lab. His current research interests and projects include the development and demonstration of high-quality solid state lighting and high-efficiency photovoltaics using semiconductor quantum dot nanocrystals, resonance energy transfer driven devices, plasmonic devices, biomimetic optoelectronic devices, and bioimplant metamaterial sensors. He has co-authored over 100 research articles in major peer-reviewed scientific journals (over 45) and conferences (over 55), presented more than 100 invited lectures, invited seminars, and invited conference talks around the world, and has over 10 patents at various stages of the process. He serves as a European Union FP7 National Expert in information and communication technologies (ICT) and NATO National Technical Member in nanotechnology.

Dr. Demir is an awardee of 2007 European Young Investigator Award (European Science Foundation ESF-EURYI). He is also a recipient of 2008 Parlar Foundation Young Scientist Award, 2006 Distinguished Young Scientist Award of Turkish National Academy of Sciences (TUBA-GEBIP), and 2005 European Union Marie Curie Fellowship Award. He is recognized with two of The Outstanding Young Persons Awards (TOYP Awards) of Junior Chamber International (JCI International Federation of Young Leaders and Entrepreneurs), 2006 JCI Turkey First Prize and 2007 JCI World First Prize in academic achievement and leadership as a young scientist. He is currently the Chair of IEEE Photonics Society Turkish Chapter.