A professional society serving the needs of Poland's photonics community has been launched, its founders have announced.
The Photonics Society of Poland (PSP) will hold its inaugural symposium on 31 May 2008 at Warsaw University of Technology, said PSP president Tomasz R. Woliñski, who is on the physics faculty of the university.
The new society has strong ties to SPIE, as many of the founders were leaders in the SPIE Poland regional chapter. SPIE has been transitioning its regional chapter program over the past few years, enabling the networks and activities established by the regional chapters to develop more effective, locally based organizations while maintaining close connections with SPIE.
With 215 members as of February 2008, the PSP is the largest optics-optoelectronics-photonics organisation in Poland. It has begun integrating activities with the Committee of Electronics and Telecommunication of the Polish Academy of Sciences and the Committee of Optoelectronics of the Society of Polish Electrical Engineers.
Eugene Arthurs, CEO of SPIE, said: ‘SPIE is proud of any role that it may have played in supporting optics and photonics in Poland. The society is also grateful for the leadership of its first woman president, an exemplar of the future focus of the Polish community.' Magorzata Kujawiñska, a professor at the Warsaw University of Technology, was president of SPIE in 2005, and continues to be active in the society’s leadership as well as Photonics21 and other organisations promoting photonics and optics.
The inaugural symposium will include plenary invited talks, poster session and a reception in the university’s Hall of the Faculty of Physics.
