Having analyzed student chapters` activities during an academic year, OSA ranks them and awards the best one with Student Chapter Excellence Prize. According to Alaudi Denisultanov, OSC`s member, the application for a grant included events and meetings organized by the Chapter and achievements of its members. For example, OSC initiated a congress of European and Asian chapter members, International School on Photonics and Optical Information Technologies and other meetings.
“Visiting these meetings optical communities from different countries build bridges. We have made a lot of new contacts with international colleagues since last year,” said Mr. Denisultanov.
The final round of the contest took place on October 18 at Student Leadership Conference, which was coeval with Frontiers in Optics conference in San Jose. Apart from ITMO University OSC a chapter forms Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne and University of Arizona` chapter entered Top-3. Vladimir Borisov noted that making final presentations each community tried to share their strong points.
“University of Arizona`s chapter focuses on so called outreach programs that aim to illustrate optical effects in creative way. For example, they have made a lens-shaped lollypop and diffraction grid consisted of fruit candies. Lausanne chapter develops a lot of international meetings. We try to pay attention to all projects. That is why we surpass other universities in almost all areas,” noted Mr. Borisov.
Vladimir Borisov also underlined that most of universities provide large meetings once a year. That is why it was astonishing that ITMO University chapter provided two events.
“We teach students how to submit an application for grants as well as how to present their ideas,” shared Egor Gurvitz, president of the ITMO University OSC. “Our projects proceed from join efforts. We motivate students developing different activities for them.”
In 2014 Stanford Optical Society became the best student chapter.