A new photonics meeting will be presented next spring in Portugal, organised by the recently established Portuguese Optics and Photonics Society (SPOF) with the support of SPIE and other international societies.
The International Conference on Applications of Optics and Photonics (AOP 2011) will be held at the University of Minho in Braga, Portugal, 3-7 May 2011. SPIE's immediate past president María Yzuel (University Autónoma de Barcelona), board of directors member Hugo Thienpont (Vrije University, Brussels), and CEO Eugene Arthurs are amongst those serving on the event's International Steering Committee.
'We are looking forward to welcoming our colleagues from around the world to our modern, 20-centuries old town of Braga, to share recent advances and future perspectives in all fields of optics and photonics,' said AOP 2011 chairman and SPOF president Manuel Filipe Costa (University do Minho). An important goal for SPOF is to establish new mutually beneficial cooperative relationships, in what Costa calls 'this wide field of utmost importance to the development of our world.'
Yzuel congratulated SPOF on its formation and conference, calling the new society 'a great initiative that will gather and strengthen the Portuguese community in optics and photonics, and will help them to link with other international societies. As SPIE 2010 Immediate Past President, I congratulate Prof. Costa and all my colleagues in Portugal, and I wish for a great future for optics and photonics in Portugal." Yzuel said. "SPOF can help to improve communication between the researchers at the Portuguese universities and research laboratories with industry,' he said.
Yzuel is a member of Photonics21 and participates in Work Group 7, concentrated on encouraging education and research. Photonics21, founded 2005, is a voluntary association of industrial enterprises and other stakeholders in the field of photonics in Europe. In addition to SPIE and SPOF, the conference is endorsed by the International Commission for Optics (ICO), European Optical Society (EOS), Sociedad Española de Óptica (SEDOPTICA), Reunión Iberoamerican de Óptica (RIAO), Academia Mexicana de Óptica, Optics and Photonics Society of Singapore (OPSS), and HCSI.
