Kent State SPIE Student Chapter Bi-Annual Report by Chapter President Mingxia Gu Liquid Crystal Institute, Kent State University Kent, OH 44242-0001 USA Phone: (330)672-1502 Fax: (330)672-2796 Email: gu@lci.kent.edu URL: http://dept.kent.edu/spie Outline of the report List of current student chapter members Detailed chapter activities since last report Details of activities planned for future Financial statement Current elected officers and advisor M. Gu Page 1 12/15/2005
1). List of current student chapter members Mingxia Gu 00837170 Oleg Pishnyak 00636605 Oksana Olkhovyk 00776344 Ye Yin 00782127 Bohdan Senyuk 00775627 Ke Zhang 00841776 Dong Wang 00833768 Cheng Chen 00841777 Xiaoli Zhou 00895594 Guangxun Liao 00848904 Guoqiang Zhang 00835033 Ebru Buyuktanir 00871963 Rui Guo 00861963 Fenghua Li 00426935 We have been giving as much effort as we can to recruit new students, for example inviting students to participate our chapter activities, talking to them about benefits of being a SPIE member. More and more non-member students are exposed to different chapter activities, for example, high school outreach program, workshop etc. A few students already participated in out chapter regular activities though they are not members yet. We believe there will be a significant increase of the member number at the beginning of the Spring semester 2006. 2). Detailed chapter activities since last report 1. The regular chapter meeting was held on June 9th. The meeting was focused on preparations of members attending the annual meeting at San Diego; due to the limited travel fund, not all the request were fulfilled; a final list of eleven members was determined at the meeting. In addition, we discussed what content should be put on the exhibition poster, and also possible experimental setup to be taken for demonstration at the exhibition. The implementation plan of the optics kits received from SPIE was brought up followed by a warm discussion. Finally, we announced the Liquid Crystal Optics and Photonics Conference in November 2005, and encouraged members to submit their research work abstract, in order to present them. 2. Four Chapter members, Mingxia Gu, Oleg Pishnyak, Ye Yin and Bohdan Senyuk, presented results (posters) of their current research on the week-long Gordon Research Conference on Liquid Crystals in Colby-Sawyer Colledge, New-London, NH, from June 19 to 24. This Conference provides a forum for discussion of the ideas at the frontier of liquid crystal science and technology. Our chapter advisor Prof. Oleg. Lavrentovich was the chair. M. Gu Page 2 12/15/2005
From left: Mingxia Gu, Ivan Smalyukh (former president), Bohdan Senyuk, Oleg Lavrentovich (chapter advisor), Oleg Pishnyak and Ye Yin pose in front of the Gordon hall where the Gordon Research Conference on Liquid Crystals was held. 3. We have provided tours to two high school students on July 6 and a group of kids on July 20 2005 respectively. The tours were co-hosted by Liquid Crystal Institute s outreach program. From the feedback, both the students and kids enjoyed the tour, and wish there could be another one in the near future. High school students watch the movie of infrared light from the SPIE optics kits. M. Gu Page 3 12/15/2005
Kent State Student chapter vice president Bohdan Senyuk shows the liquid crystal textures under the optical polarized microscope to the high school students on July 6, 2005. M. Gu Page 4 12/15/2005
Kent State Student chapter president Mingxia Gu explains the polarization rotation in the Twisted Nematic liquid crystal display to the high school students on July 6, 2005. Kent State Student Chapter members and Liquid crystal Institute outreach manager Sean Hyatt pose with high school students in front of the Liquid Crystal Institute building on July 6, 2005. Kent State Student Chapter member Ye Yin explains the X-ray to the high school students on July 6, 2005. M. Gu Page 5 12/15/2005
Kent State Student chapter vice president Bohdan Senyuk shows the liquid crystal textures under the optical polarized microscope to a group of kid on July 20 2005. A little girl was trying to use the electric field to switch the liquid crystal in order to change the textures under the optical polarized microscope to a group of kid on July 20 2005. 4. Ten members from our chapter attended the annual meeting July 31 to August 4 at San Diego (one member was not able to attend because of a sudden assignment). The ten members attended the student leadership workshop along with other student chapter M. Gu Page 6 12/15/2005
members on July 30. Dr. Stassun s Science Outreach: Theory, Practice, & Scholarship talk, Rochester s demo of cholesteric liquid crystals, Kodak s Gloria Putnam s From Student to Professional talk, the hands on building blinking, and the wonderful lunch made an exciting and complete day. Chapter members Oleg Pishnyak and Bohdan Senyuk received SPIE Scholarship. We specially thank Dirk Fabian for arranging the unofficial student reception at the hotel; it was a wonderful opportunity to network with other student chapters in an easy way. We hope there will be a similar one at the next year s annual conference. From left: Ning Su and Kejia Wang (Notre Dame), Ivan Smalyukh (Great Lakes), Adam Willitsford and Yana Williams (Penn State) and Mingxia Gu (Kent State) pose in the Student Leadership Workshop of the 2005 Annual Meeting at San Diego. M. Gu Page 7 12/15/2005
From Left: Kent State Chapter members Oksana Oikhovyk, Lanfang Li, Ebru Buyuktanir, Prof. Keivan Stassun (Vanderbilt University), Dirk Fabian (SPIE Student Services Coordinator), Oleg Pishnyak and Mingxia Gu pose in the Student Leadership Workshop of the 2005 Annual Meeting at San Diego. From left Jijo Ulahannan (Cochin University of Science&Technology), Oleg Pishnyak (Kent State), Ning Su (Notre Dame), Mingxia Gu (Kent State), Yi-Hsin Lin (Central Florida), Ebru Buyuktanir (Kent State) and Yung-Hsun Wu (Central Florida) pose in front of the Kent State Chapter s exhibition board during the 2005 Annual Meeting at San Diego. M. Gu Page 8 12/15/2005
Former SPIE President James W. Bilbro poses with Kent State Student Chapter President Mingxia Gu and Treasurer Ebru Buyuktanir in front of the Kent State Chatpter s exhibition board during the 2005 Annual Meeting at San Diego. Kent State and Penn State Chapter members pose on the beautiful Coronado Beach after the first day s academic programs during the 2005 Annual Meeting at San Diego. 5. We had a welcome party for the new physics, chemistry and chemical physics students to Kent State Universities; the party was co-hosted with Kent State SID, OSA and MRS Student Chapter on September 3, 2005. During the party, much information about student chapter was given to the new students, including the SPIE student M. Gu Page 9 12/15/2005
handbook, and how to become a SPIE member and join Kent State Student Chapter, with its benefits. More than 50 students attended the welcome party. 6. Our student chapter members hosted an open house along with some other students and former student chapter members during the Kent State homecoming day of September 17, 2005. Chapter member Clinton Braganza (left) explains the color change of the cholesteric liquid crystal to public audience on the Kent State homecoming day. Kent State Student chapter vice president Bohdan Senyuk shows the liquid crystal textures under the optical polarized microscope to public audience on the Kent State homecoming day. M. Gu Page 10 12/15/2005
Former Kent State Student chapter member Bin Wang shows the liquid crystal display prototype to public audience on the Kent State homecoming day. Kent State Student chapter member John Harden explains the polarization of light to public audience on the Kent State homecoming day. M. Gu Page 11 12/15/2005
7. We have created new logos for our student chapter. The new logo has three different versions, mainly different in color illustration, shown below: 8. On October 26, along with Dayton and Notre Dame chapters, we held a series of activities. Listening to presentation on different liquid crystals, exchanging outreach experience, joint outreach competition and career workshop make the day so exciting and beneficial. The joint outreach was taken place in Western Reserve Academy, one of the best private high schools in nation. Three chapters presented their outreach demos to the students, who showed great interest. More than 100 students watched the presentations, along with a Japanese professor and his family, who also coordinates the high school outreach program in Japan. After the presentations, the students were asked to fill evaluation forms in order to judge the performances of each chapter. Although our chapter won the first place, the score are so close. In addition, many students wrote down numerous suggestions to the presentations, which are precious to our future outreach. Three chapters members listens to the presentations of different liquid crystals by the first year students at Liquid Crystal Institute on October 26, 2005. M. Gu Page 12 12/15/2005
Chapter members exchange outreach experience before the presentations on October 26, 2005. Notre Dame chapter member Jusong Wang presents the outreach activities by Notre Dame on October 26, 2005. M. Gu Page 13 12/15/2005
Dayton chapter president Aziz Mahfoud presents the outreach activities by Dayton on October 26, 2005. Students from Western Reserve Academy listen to the presentations on October 26, 2005 M. Gu Page 14 12/15/2005
Students from Western Reserve Academy listen to the presentations on October 26, 2005. Kent State chapter president Mingxia Gu receives the first prize certificate from James Grote, President of the Great Lakes Chapter. M. Gu Page 15 12/15/2005
Hobson Hamilton, assistant director in the Career Services Center of Kent State University, gives a presentation on CV writing at Samsung Auditorium on October 26, 2005. 9. The Liquid Crystals in Optics & Photonics conference was held on October 27-28 at Liquid Crystal Institute of Kent State University. Our chapter members actively participate in this conference, 14 research papers were submitted by our chapter members for poster and oral presentations. Members Fenghua Li and Mingxia Gu won the outstanding oral presentation award. Fenghua Li (left) and Mingxia Gu receive the awards for outstanding oral presentations of the Liquid Crystals in Optics & Photonics conference from Prof. Oleg Lavrentovich, director of Liquid Crystal Institute, also the advisor of SPIE student chapter. 10. We received an Optics Suitcase from Prof. Jacobs Steven of University of Rochester for future outreach activities. The Optics Suitcase provides many necessary M. Gu Page 16 12/15/2005
components for optical experiments, including polarizations, selective reflection, diffraction etc. We plan to use them in the outreach program and also the bring-in tour. 11. We are corresponding to three universities to help them to establish their own SPIE student chapters, the three universities are Carnegie Mellon University (Shahab Shojaei), Case Western Reserve University (Minhua Zhu), Bowling Green State University (Victor Montes). We expect more collaboration could be possible in the future. 12. We are exchanging research abstracts with Warsaw University of Technology Student Chapter in Poland, seeking for opportunities of collaboration in crossed fields. This activity is still in progress. 3). Details of Activities Planned for Future It is our priority to do our bests to keep our chapter s good standing, continue the collaboration between student chapters. 1. Keep in close touch with University of Dayton, Pennsylvania State University and Notre Dame University s SPIE student chapters. Especially for the coming Great Lake Symposium in June 2006, we are planning some student activities, for example tour of the Air Force Museum and a possible joint outreach competition again. 2. More educational tours for high schools are being planned. And fund raising through Graduate Student Senate of Kent State University to support the educational tour for high school students. 3. Attracting undergraduate students from Physics and Chemistry by giving seminars, tours and interactive communications. 4. Actively participate in conferences in the fields of Optics, Chemistry, Engineering, Physics and Applications of Liquid Crystals, for instance the Great Lake Symposium in June 2006. 5. Maintain close relations, interchange experience and plan common activities with other SPIE chapters around the world (the Yahoo Group is a good place to communicate and share good stuff). 6. Apply for SPIE grants and scholarships available to chapter and individual chapter members to support travel and research activities. 4). Financial Statement Expenses: Amount: Date: Balance: Previous balance $2,036.69 5/4/2005 $2,036.69 1. Chapter meeting Food & Refreshments $38.55 6/9/2005 $1,998.14 M. Gu Page 17 12/15/2005
2. SPIE annual meeting 05 Student Chap candy $4.97 7/28/2005 $1,993.17 3. SPIE annual meeting 05 Student Chap poster fee $55.51 7/28/2005 $1,937.66 4. Total expense for financial support of SPIE meeting $864.00 8/12/2005 $1,073.66 5. Great Lakes Student Chapter support $500.00 9/1/2005 $1,573.66 6. Welcome party drink and Pizza expense $59.49 9/2/2005 $1,514.17 7. Prize for outreach competition $550.00 10/29/2005 $2,064.17 Total balance $2,064.17 5). Current Elected Officers and Advisor Advisor: Prof. Oleg D. Lavrentovich (odl@lci.kent.edu) President: Mingxia Gu (gu@lci.kent.edu) Vice-president: Bohdan Senyuk (bohdan@lci.kent.edu) Treasurer: Ebru Aylin Buyuktanir (buyuktan@lci.kent.edu) Secretary: Xinghua Wang (xhwang@lci.kent.edu) We will have an election for new 05-06 officers at the beginning of the spring semester 2006. M. Gu Page 18 12/15/2005