FiO conference schedule posted

The OSA recently posted all the speakers and events for FiO/LS, so attendees can start making an itinerary of the talks that interest them. There's a great set of invited speakers for the session on image-based wavefront sensing -- which is what I worked on in my previous life (grad school). It's always enlightening to hear a talk by someone who's papers you've (academically) grown up reading, and finally put a face to a name. On Thursday, there's a session on holography and diffractive optics that I will surely be at, with what should be an awesome talk by Prof. Barbastathis of MIT (my prof in my previous life - i may be biased). Oh, and there is a session on nonlinear imaging, which is what i am (trying to) do in my current life. I could go on...

Every year, I also pick a conjugate topic to my research that I know very little about and listen to a few talks in that area to try to figure out the main points. It's like trying to learn German by reading tax laws in German... any suggestions for a fun topic this year??!

hello world!

Welcome! I'm starting this blog as part of the OSA's (very well-coordinated) social media attack on the optics community, to provide different perspectives on what it's like to attend FiO, from students to famous profs. Being a recent PhD graduate and new postdoc, I am somewhere in the middle of the two (a lot closer to the student side). I think I was chosen for this honorable post due to my previous blogging experience as a grad student.

This will be my third year attending FiO, but it is the 94th OSA Annual Meeting and Laser Science XXVI - (note the lack of consistency in units). I am excited for another fun week in Rochester, attending the 'Oscars of optics' and learning about research breakthroughs in a very wide range of topics in optics.