From June 16th to the 21st, the Centre for Optics, Photonics and Lasers (COPL) at Université Laval, in Quebec City, Canada, hosted the first North American Summer School on Photonic Materials (NASSPM).
The School was organized under the auspices of the International Commission on Glass (ICG), a not-for-profit society that promotes collaboration between experts in glass science and technology worldwide.
With 80 participants from 13 different countries, this international training initiative was co-chaired by Younès Messaddeq who holds the Canada Excellence Research in Photonic Innovation at Université Laval, and Kathleen Richardson, Pegasus Professor of Optics and Materials Science and Engineering at the College of Optics and Photonics at the University of Central Florida (UCF).
The participants included graduate students and early career scientists. The school combines morning lectures given by twenty internationally recognized scientists and afternoon hands-on laboratory projects carried out within COPL’s research infrastructure. Details of the School’s program, including lecture and experimental plans, can be found at www.nasspm.org. Through the critical mass of expertise at the COPL and the exceptional quality of their facilities, this type of lecture/laboratory format was unprecedented. Benefiting from a sizeable investment from COPL and numerous international industry partners, educational foundations, government agencies and professional societies, the opportunity to hold such a training activity on the campus of Université Laval was made possible.
