PROGRAMME

Provisional DRAFT PROGRAMME for the Summer School may be downloaded here

GUEST LECTURER BIOGRAPHIES

Giulio Cerullo (Lecture Series: Tuneable Ultra-broadband Pulse Generation & Applications)

  Giulio Cerullo graduated in Electrical Engineering from the Politecnico di Milano (Italy) in 1988. From 1989 to 1991 he was with the company Baasel Lasertechnik (Germany) developing laser systems for medical applications. In 1991 he became staff researcher at Politecnico di Milano. In the years 1995-1996 he visited the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory (USA.) with a Nato Advanced Research Fellowship. In 1999 he became Associate Professor of Physics at Politecnico di Milano. His research activity focuses on the physics and applications of ultrashort pulse lasers. His current scientific interests concern generation of few-optical-cycle pulses, ultrafast spectroscopy with time resolution down to a few femtoseconds, nonlinear nano-optics and optical waveguide writing by ultrashort pulses. He is the author of 190 papers in international peer-reviewed journals (H-index: 33) and has given over 35 invited presentations at international conferences. He is Topical Editor for the Journal Optics Letters for the area Ultrafast Optical Phenomena.

Ian Walmsley (Lecture Series: Characterization of Ultrashort Optical Pulses)

Ian Walmsley received a B.Sc. degree with first class honours in Physics from Imperial College, University of London. His doctoral dissertation, at The Institute of Optics, concerned the quantum nature of spontaneous scattering. He received his Ph.D. in Optics from the University of Rochester in 1986. Following a brief period as a postdoctoral research associate at Cornell University he joined The Institute of Optics in 1988 as an Assistant Professor. He is presently Professor of Physics at University of Oxford. He currently holds the Hooke Chair of Experimental Physics and is Head of Atomic and Laser Physics. He is a Fellow of the Optical Society of America and the American Physical Society, and a former National Science Foundation Presidential Young Investigator. He is a member of the Beirat of the Max Born Institute and the Physics Strategic Advisory Panel of the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and has previously been Director at Large of the OSA. Professor Walmsley's research interests include the fundamental physics of short pulse lasers, particularly in the characterization of ultrashort optical pulses, new methods of ultrafast time-resolved spectroscopy, and the interaction of radiation and matter on short time scales.

Margaret Murnane (Lecture Series: Coherent X-ray Imaging)

Margaret Murnane is a member of the faculty in the Department of Physics and Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Colorado. She received her B.S and M.S. degrees from University College Cork and her Ph.D. degree from the UC Berkeley. She remained at Berkeley as a postdoctoral fellow, before joining the faculty at Washington State University in 1990. In 1996, Margaret moved to the interests have been in ultrafast optical and x-ray science and technology. She runs a joint research group with her husband, Professor Henry Kapteyn, as well as a high tech laser company, KMLasers. She is a Fellow of the American Physical Society, the Optical Society of America, and the AAAS. She was elected to the US National Academy of Sciences in 2004, and was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship in 2000. Margaret is very interested in increasing diversity in science and engineering.

John Dudley (Lecture Series: Ultrafast Nonlinear Fibre Optics)

Originally from Otahuhu in New Zealand, John Dudley received B.Sc and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Auckland in 1987 and 1992 respectively. In 1992 and 1993, he carried out postdoctoral research at the University of St Andrews in Scotland before taking a lecturing position in 1994 at the University of Auckland. In 2000, he was appointed Professor at the University of Franche-Comté in Besançon, France, where he heads the Optoelectronics and Photonics research group.  He was named a member of the Institut Universitaire de France in 2005 and elected a Fellow of the Optical Society of America in 2007.  He is an IEEE LEOS Distinguished Lecturer for the period 2008-2010.

William Wadsworth (Lecture Series: Nonlinearity & Wavelength Conversion in Fibres)

William Wadsworth obtained his BA from the University of Oxford in 1993 and his D.Phil in 1997 for thesis work on high power nanosecond pulsed Ti:Sapphire lasers. He joined the University of Bath in 1999 to pursue research on nonlinear optics in the new photonic crystal fibres that were developed at Bath at the time. He held a Royal Society University Research Fellowship from 2001-2009 to continue research in this area. His research highlights have included: Investigations of supercontinuum generation – including ultraviolet generation and the first demonstrations of visible supercontinuum in fibres using infrared Q-switched lasers;  providing supercontinuum fibres and expertise for the first generation of phase stabilised modelocked lasers for applications in frequency metrology; pulse manipulation of modelocked lasers – including wavelength conversion, pulse compression and lengthening and pulse cleanup for fibre lasers; and efficient generation of single photons in optical fibre for quantum information applications.

Ken Ledingham (Lecture Series: Applications of Ultra-intense Short Laser Pulses)

Ken Ledingham spent the first 20 years of his research career (B.Sc and Ph.D.) working on nuclear problems using conventional accelerators at the Kelvin Laboratory and at CERN.  In the mid 80s he changed direction and developed resonant ionization spectroscopy using resonant lasers to detect explosives, drugs and other environmentally sensitivity materials.  In the mid 90s he developed high intensity lasers to applications in nuclear physics.  In 2000 he was awarded a personal chair at the University of Glasgow, which in 2001 he transferred to the University of Strathclyde and was awarded the AWE William Penney Professorship of Laser Nuclear physics.  In 2004 he was visiting professor at the University of Osaka, in 2005, 2006 the first Carl Zeiss professor of Optics at the University of Jena.  In 2007, 2009 he was created a FZD fellow at the Rossendorf Institute, Dresden.

 Jon Marangos (Lecture Series: Attosecond Generation and High-Field Science)

Jon Marangos graduated from Imperial College with B.Sc. in 1982 and Ph.D. 1986. He then conducted postdoctoral research in the Blackett Laboratory between 1986-1990 during which time he was a founder member of the Blackett Laboratory Laser Consortium. He was an EPSRC Advanced Fellow between 1990-1995 researching strong field physics, followed by an academic post at Imperial College. He has been Professor since 2002. His research interests include attosecond science, quantum control and strong field science.

 Thomas Udem (Lecture Series: Frequency Combs)

Thomas Udem was born on September 25 1962 in Bayreuth/Germany. From 1987 to 1993 he studied physics at the University of Giessen in Germany and at the University of Washington in Seattle, USA. In 1993 he received his diploma from the University of Giessen. After that he was worked towards a Ph.D. at the Max-Planck-Institut für Quantenoptik in Garching/Germany which he received from the Ludwigs Maximilians University Munich/Germany in 1997. Since then he has been working at the Max-Planck Institut für Quantenoptik and at the National Institute for Standards and Technology in Boulder,USA. In 2004 he received his habilitation from the Ludwigs Maximilians University Munich/Germany.

Wilson Sibbett (Guest Lecture: Celebrating Ultrashort-pulse Lasers)

Professor Wilson Sibbett (CBE, FRS, FRSE)  has an outstanding track record as a major innovator in the field of ultrafast optical science and technology and has co-authored more than 350 journal publications in this subject area. Most notably, the original demonstration of Kerr-lens mode locking by his research group in 1989 had an enormous impact on the subsequent development of femto-science and femto-technology.  In the 1970s he carried out research on picosecond, flashlamp-pumped lasers and pioneered the development of linear-response electron-optical streak cameras with which he demonstrated sub-picosecond resolution for the first time.  In the mid-to-late 1980s his work on coupled-cavity (or additive-pulse) mode-locked colour-centre lasers provided excellent femtosecond laser sources for telecom-window studies in optical fibres.  Indeed, the many optical techniques that he has helped to develop have been exploited in several areas of physics, chemistry, optoelectronics, bio-photonics and photo-medicine and have been the catalyst for extensive related research and development activities on the global scene.  His ongoing research involves extending his ultrafast laser developments into the semiconductor regime, and also includes research programmes in bio-photonics and photo-medicine.

Ursula Keller (Lecture Series: Advances in Ultrafast Laser Sources)

Ursula Keller joined ETH as professor of physics in 1993.  She received a Ph.D. in Applied Physics from Stanford University in 1989 and the Physics "Diplom" from ETH in 1984.  She was a Member of Technical Staff (MTS) at AT&T Bell Laboratories in New Jersey from 1989 to 1993.  Her research interests are exploring and pushing the frontiers in ultrafast science and technology: ultrafast solid-state and semiconductor lasers, frequency comb generation and stabilization, attosecond pulse generation and science using high harmonic generation.  She has published more than 290 peer-reviewed journal papers and 11 book chapters and she holds or has applied for 17 patents.  She received the OSA Fraunhofer/Burley Prize in 2008, the Philip Morris Research Award in 2005, the first-placed award of the Berthold Leibinger Innovation Prize in 2004, and the Carl Zeiss Research Award in 1998.  She is an OSA Fellow and an elected foreign member of both the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and the German Academy Leopoldina.

Jeff Squier (Lecture Series: Biomedical Imaging: Technology & Applications)

Jeff Squier is a Professor of Physics in the Department of Physics at the Colorado School of Mines (CSM) and is co-director of the Center for Microintegrated Optics for Advanced Bioimaging and Control (http://www.moabc.org). His current research focuses on the development of practical multiphoton imaging technologies for tracking dynamics in three-dimensions deep within scattering tissue, rapid prototyping of lab-on-a-chip devices using femtosecond micromachining, and evaluation of cell health using lasers to probe the mechanical properties of cells. He is a Fellow of the Optical Society of America.

Stefan Nolte (Lecture Series: Materials Processing using Ultrafast Lasers)

Stefan Nolte is a Professor for Experimental Physics/Laser Physics at the Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena (Germany) and the head of the ultrafast optics group.  He received a diploma in 1995 and a Ph.D. in Physics in 1999 (Micromaterials processing with ultrashort laser pulses) from the University of Hannover, Germany. His research interests are focused on scientific and technical aspects associated with ultrashort laser pulses including their generation, amplification, tailoring and their application. Research topics cover the interaction of ultrashort laser pulses with solids and gases. Apart from nonlinear effects during propagation in bulk material as well as in fibres and waveguides this also includes the application of ultrashort pulses for materials processing and modification. Stefan Nolte has been actively engaged in research on femtosecond laser micromachining since the field’s inception in the mid-1990s. He investigated the fundamentals of the interaction process as well as possible applications in industry and medicine.

Philip Bucksbaum (Lecture Series: Ultrafast Quantum Control)

Phil Bucksbaum is an atomic physicist based at Stanford University in the USA. His research interests are in the areas of quantum control of atoms and molecules, with particular emphasis on the use of ultrafast timescales, strong laser fields and short wavelength radiation. After graduating from Harvard, he gained his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkley and then followed this with a postdoctoral position at Bell Laboratories. Prior to his appointment at Stanford in 2006 he previously held faculty positions at Columbia University and The University of Michigan. Professor Bucksbaum is Director of the PULSE institute, a member of the National Academy of Sciences and a Fellow of both the American Physical Society and the Optical Society of America.