IONS-Asia 1/ China
Organised by the CIOMP OSA Student Chapter, Asia's first IONS Conference took off in Changchun in Northeastern China during May 23-25, 2009. More than 70 students from nine Chinese and one US American student chapter attended the conference at the Changchun Institute of Optics, Fine Mechanics and Physics (CIOMP).
It's the main objective of all IONS conferences to connect students, enable them to build a professional network, support their professional career, and broaden their scientific background. For the first time in Asia, IONS successfully brought together students from across northern and southern China, forstering regional collaboration between student chapters and allowing students to network and discuss science face-to-face.
The conference started with talks of invited speakers Prof. David J. Brady from Duke University on 'Computational Optical Imaging', Prof. Xuejun Zhang from CIOMP on recent developments of SiC asphere manufacturing, and Prof. Junpeng Guo from the University of Alabama at Huntsville on ultra-long range surface plasmon-polaritons at optical frequencies. In the afternoon session the students presented their latest results to their fellow students and the invited speakers, discussed them, and informed themselves about other young scientist's research projects.
The conference also addressed student chapter related topics as building and developing a student chapter which offered valuable advise for chapters to improve their activities, or start a new chapter.
The programme also included a poster session, a laboratory visit at CIOMP, a visit at the Changchun Satellite Observation, a dinner reception and a picknick at Jing Yuetan Park.
