The first UArizona Museum Open Day was a huge success for all participating museums on campus! Two LOFT members, Daewook and Vipender, happily welcomed all the visitors with other wonderful volunteers. The Wyant College of Optical Sciences had its doors open from 10 a.m. – 4 p.m. on March 23rd and saw many excited visitors interested in learning more about the mysteries and history of optical sciences. Once again, a special thank you to all the amazing volunteers who made this day possible! Learn more about the event and see photos here.

Our LOFT Ph.D. graduate Dr. Maham Aftab (at ASML) will give a keynote talk at the OPTICA Freeform Optics Summit on 2-3 April, 2024. We are happy to see that our LOFT graduates are continuing to advance the optical science technologies and share the knowledge with our community.

In October 2023, Stanford University in collaboration with Elsevier Data Repository, released the list which includes the Single Year 2022 Scientific Impact. LOFT group PI Daewook Kim has been included in the World’s Top 2% Scientists List. “The selection is based on the top 100,000 scientists by c-score (with and without self-citations) or a percentile rank of 2% or above in the sub-field. The c-score focuses on impact (citations) rather than productivity (number of publications) and it also incorporates information on co-authorship and author positions (single, first, last author).” Congratulations to Daewook and the entire LOFT group members who have been publishing and sharing the research outcomes with the international society through various publications. More information is available in the official archive.

LOFT Master’s student, Rachel Turner, received the 2023 SPIE scholarship! We are so happy for her! She did great work with Michael Hart and now working on her Master’s research investigation with LOFT peers and Daewook. Please, read more here.

The Optica Publishing Group highlighted a paper published by Wyant College and UArizona faculty with industry partners, Nikon, Northrop Grumman and L’Garde. The paper “Modeling and Characterization of OASIS Inflatable Primary Antenna by Dual Modality Metrology” discusses the concept of a 14m aperture inflatable space observatory and its feasibility study focusing on the primary inflatable mirror. Read more here.

We are so happy that Mina Yoo (LOFT peer) received the Optica Women Scholars for 2023! “The Optica Foundation recognized the 20 Optica Women Scholars. This program provides visibility, community, and resources for women in optics and photonics via financial support, professional development, and establishing a global network as they enter the field. The scholarship is awarded based on need, academic performance, and demonstrated potential.”

Congratulations, Mina! For more information, please, visit the Optica announcement page.

Our LOFT member, Joel Berkson, was awarded the Student Innovator of The Year 2022 by Tech Launch Arizona at the University of Arizona. We, the LOFT peers, are so proud of him. You can find the official news release here.

Kevin Derby received the Best Student Presentation award at the 2022 SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation conference in Montreal, Canada! Congratulations! LOFT peers are so happy for you.

Here are the announcements: SPIE website and SPIE Twitter

LOFT member, Bo Wang, was elected to the honorary title of Fellow for the Optical Society of Southern California, the most active Optical Sub-Chapter, at their annual end-of-the-year business meeting’. 

Congratulations, Bo! LOFT members keep serving our community!