Hi all!
I'm so excited to announce that as of Aug 28, 2023 we are recognized as both an official campus organization AND as an official student chapter by SPIE!
My name is Leslie and I am the current president of the UMBC SPIE Student Chapter (that's me in the picture). I am a 5th year physical chemistry PhD student studying laser spectroscopy. I met a lot of you at the grad student org fest this afternoon and it was so great to meet you all! I'm really excited to have a group where all the people interested in optics can come together.
Our first meeting will be held November 14th in the chemistry building (Meyerhoff) room 120 at 5 pm. More information on that is to come. I wanted to post now to get a funding opportunity on your radar. SPIE offers travel grants (including airfare, hotel, and registration fees) to students! The application can be found here. The deadline for the Advanced Lithography + Patterning conference is Nov 23, 2023 and the deadline for the Photonics West 2024 and AR/VR/MR 2024 conferences are due Nov 17, 2023.
To be eligible to receive funding you must be an active Student Member of SPIE. I highly encourage you all to become members! It is only $20 for the year, there are a number of perks from SPIE, and you can put it on your resume! If you enroll in a membership, be sure to select that you are affiliated with the UMBC Student Chapter of SPIE.