Tech Hubs in the Spotlight at 2025 CREOL Industrial Affiliates Symposium
Three-day program draws hundreds to CREOL to network, learn, and present.
CREOL hosted more than 230 attendees from around the world for the annual Industrial Affiliates Symposium.
The Symposium brought together members of the CREOL Industrial Affiliates (IA) program in an intentional fusion of academia, industry, and government. Students and faculty also took advantage of the many networking opportunities the three-day program created. This year, the rise of tech hubs was the focus, as speakers discussed the future of photonic sensing, semiconductor manufacturing, and quantum device fabrication.
On Thursday, April 17, more than 150 students took part in the Spring Optics and Photonics Career Fair. Representatives from CREOL Industrial Affiliate companies judged the Senior Design Showcase competition, awarding first place to the “Image Surveillance and Protection Yielder” project (read more here). Later that afternoon, dozens were welcomed to CREOL for lab tours, and to attend a special guest lecture “Light a Path for Quantum Sensing” presented by Jun Ye from the University of Colorado. The evening concluded with the annual Affiliate-Student Mixer event.
On Friday, after a warm welcome from UCF Provost Michael Johnson, CREOL Dean David Hagan gave an overview of CREOL, highlighting recent faculty additions and the plans to continue growing. Talks and presentations included:
SMART USA: Digital Twins – A Revolution in Advanced Manufacturing and Innovation
Volker Sorger, University of Florida
Expanding Central Florida’s Semiconductor Ecosystem
Leland Nordin, University of Central Florida
The Montana Headwaters Tech Hub for Smart Photonic Remote Sensing Systems
Joseph Shaw, Montana State University
Student of the Year Talk: Non-Gaussian Light Scattering Phenomena and Applications
Shubham Dawda, University of Central Florida
Engineering Quantum: Building the National Quantum Nanofab
Scott Diddams, University of Colorado Boulder
UCF’s Quantum Leap Initiative
Andrea Blanco-Redondo, University of Central Florida
Unleashing the Florida Photonics Industry: Establishing a Photonics Hub in Florida
Panel Discussion moderated by Leland Nordin, featuring Ty Olmstead, Volker Sorger, Scott Diddams, Joseph Shaw, and Jim McNally
The National Landscape of Photonics Technician Training
Natalia Chekhovskaya, Indian River State College
Valencia College Technical Training Program
Brendon Monize, Valencia College
View the full IAS ’25 schedule here.
Participants also heard industry update presentations from SPIE President Peter de Groot and Optica President Jim Kafka. Company spotlight talks were given by Randall Hinton with Edmund Optics, Curtis Sargent and Robert Gappinger with Safran Optics 1, and Jason Eichenholz with Relativity Networks.
The tech conference portion of the symposium concluded with the recognition of the student poster presentation winner Daniel Lumpkin, 2024-2025 CREOL Student of the Year Shubham Dawda, and 2025 Distinguished Alumnus Award Winner Zhibing Ge ‘04MS ‘07PhD.
Industrial corporations and businesses that are involved in the development or use of optics and photonics, or foresee the company’s involvement in future applications and processes using optics and photonics, are encouraged to become involved in our programs through research sponsorship and by enjoying the benefits provided through our Industrial Affiliates program. You can read more about it here.
