Speakers

Thomas M. Baer

Keynote Speaker

OSA President in 2009 and Executive Director of the Stanford Photonics Research Center

Dr. Baer is currently the Executive Director of the Stanford Photonics Research Center and a member of the Applied Physics Department at Stanford University. His current research is focused on developing imaging and analysis technology for exploring the molecular basis of developmental biology and neuroscience.

From 1996 to 2005 Dr. Baer was the CEO, chairman, and founder of Arcturus Bioscience, a biotechnology company located in Mountain View, CA, which he established in 1996. Arcturus Bioscience pioneered the area of Microgenomics by developing and manufacturing laser microdissection instrumentation and integrated bioreagent systems. Arcturus developed products that allowed precise genetic analysis of microscopic tissue samples and which were integrated into a new generation of cancer diagnostic tests. Prior to Arcturus, Dr. Baer was Vice President of Research at Biometric Imaging, where he led an interdisciplinary group developing products with applications in the areas of AIDS monitoring, bone marrow transplant therapy, and blood supply quality control. From 1981 to 1992 Dr. Baer was at Spectra-Physics, Inc., where he held positions as Vice-President of Research and Spectra-Physics Fellow. While at Spectra-Physics his research focused on ultra-fast lasers, optical pulse compression, diode-pumped solid-state lasers, and non-linear optics.

Dr. Baer has made major contributions in the areas of biotechnology, quantum electronics, and laser applications, and is listed as an inventor on 60 patents and is a co-author on many peer reviewed publications in a number of different scientific fields. His commercial products have received many industry awards for design innovation. Co-founder of four companies in Silicon Valley, he was named entrepreneur of the year for emerging companies in Silicon Valley in 2000, by the Silicon Valley Business Journal. Dr. Baer graduated with a BA degree in Physics Magna Cum Laude from Lawrence University and received his MS and Ph.D. degrees in Atomic Physics from the University of Chicago. He is also an alumnus of Harvard Business School and in 1994 he received the Distinguished Alumni Award from Lawrence University. He has been elected to the status of Fellow in two international scientific societies, the American Association for the Advancement of Science and The Optical Society of America (OSA) and will serve as the President of OSA in 2009.

Lukas Novotny

Keynote Speaker

University of Rochester

Lukas Novotny is a Professor at the University of Rochester's Institute of Optics where he heads the Nano-Optics research group. He holds joint appointments with the Department of Physics and Astronomy and the Biomedical Engineering department.

Novotny earned his MS and PhD degrees from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich, Switzerland. From 1996-99 he was a postdoctoral fellow at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, working on new schemes of single molecule detection. In 1999 he joined the faculty of the Institute of Optics where he started the first research program with focus on Nano-Optics. Novotny's general interest is in localized light-matter interactions with applications ranging from solid-state physics to biology. The projects are described in more detail under www.nano-optics.org.

Novotny is the author of over 100 peer-reviewed journal publications and five patents. He is a Fellow of the Optical Society of America and is the author of Principles of Nano-Optics, published by Cambridge University Press. At the Institute of Optics he is teaching a course on Quantum Mechanics of Optical Materials and Devices (OPT223) and a course on Nano-Optics (OPT463) on a yearly basis since 1999.

Lluis Torner

Special Speaker

ICFO Director

Lluis Torner received the BSc and MSc degrees in physics from the Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona and the PhD degree from the Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya, with highest honors.

He was a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Research and Education in Optics and Lasers, University of Central Florida, at the Optical Sciences Center, University of Arizona, and at the University of Maryland at Baltimore. He is currently Full Professor at the Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya, Barcelona, where he is conducting research and education in photonics, with emphasis in nonlinear optics.

He is the co-author of about 300 journal scientific publications. His research contributions were selected to belong to the Optics of the Year feature compiled by the Optical Society of America in the years 1995, 1997, 1999, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2006, 2007 and 2008.

Dr Torner is a Fellow of the Optical Society of America, and is a recipient of several honors, including a Iberdrola IP award and a Presidential GenCat award from the Government of Catalonia, both for outstanding research. He served as guest speaker for the 2005 World Year of Physics, in the Parliament of Catalonia.

He is currently serving as a member of the Board of Directors of the European Physical Society/QEO division; as member of the Scientific and Technological Advisory Council, National Foundation for Research and Technology; as member of a high-level group for the European Photonics technology platform; and as the Director of the ICFO-Institute of Photonic Sciences, in Barcelona, Spain.