:: OFS-25 :: The 25th International Conference on Optical Fiber Sensors

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General Chair

Prof. Youngjoo Chung (GIST, South Korea) Brief CV

Professor at School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology (GIST), and vice-president of the Optical Society of Korea (OSK). He has published ~100 journal papers and ~160 international conference papers. His research interests include specialty optical fibers, fiber gratings, and fiber-based devices for communication and sensing.

General Co-Chair

Prof. Wei Jin (The Hong Kong Polytechnic Univ., China) Brief CV

Chair Professor of Photonic Instrumentation and Director of Photonic Sensors Laboratory. He authored/co-authored 2 books and 500 papers in the field of photonic devices and sensors. His current research interests are in novel fibre-optic instrumentations for high sensitivity detection of pressure, acoustic wave and trace chemicals.

TPC Chair

Prof. Byoungho Lee (Seoul National University, Korea) Brief CV

Byoungho Lee received his Ph.D. degree from UC Berkeley in EECS in 1993. Since September 1994, he has been with the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering as faculty member, where he is serving as the Head now. He is a Fellow of SPIE, OSA and IEEE and a member of the Korean Academy of Science and Technology. He has served as a Vice-President of the Korean Information Display Society and is serving as a Vice-President of the Optical Society of Korea. He has served in many committees of OSA including Board of Directors and Members and Education Services Council (chair). He has received many awards such as The Scientist of the Month Award of Korea (Sep. 2009) and the Jinbojang Medal by the President of Korea (2016). He also has served on the editorial boards of many journals. Currently, he is on the editorial board of Advanced Optics and Photonics and Light: Science and Applications. His current research fields are metamaterials, nanostructures and diffractive optics.

TPC Co-Chairs

Prof. John Canning (The Univ. of Sydney, Australia) Brief CV

Prof. John Canning (SPIE Fellow, OSA Fellow) is with the School of Computing and Communications at the University of Technology Sydney and runs the interdisciplinary Photonics Laboratories (iPL) within the School of Chemistry at the University of Sydney. He is an adjunct professor at the School of Electrical Engineering and Telecommunications, University of NSW, and has cofounded several companies as well as helped to develop the technology of several others. He is presently a Director of Australian Sensing and Identification (AusSI) Systems and an industry consultant for Russell Photonics. He has been consultant for a number of companies and individuals over the years in technology, commercialisation and intellectual property generation as well as mentoring. He has been an Otto Monsted Professor at the Danish Technical University, Denmark 2004, and a Villum Kann Rasmussen Professor at iNANO, Aarhus University, Denmark 2007, Science without Borders Professor at UTFPR, Brazil 2014-2017, and is involved with the Program 111 at UESTC, Chengdu, China 2014. He has been a Guest Professor at the Laser Institute Shandong Academy of Sciences, China. He has been an Expert Member of the University of Sydney’s Latin Regional Advisory Committee and an Advisor to the China and India activities of the University. He has over 700 peer reviewed journal and conference papers and has lodged more than 35 patents.

Prof. Kentaro Nakamura (Tokyo Inst. of Tech., Japan) Brief CV

Kentaro Nakamura received D.Eng. degree from Tokyo Inst. of Tech., Japan, in 1992. He has been a professor of Precision and Intelligence Laboratory, Tokyo Inst. of Tech. since 2010.
His field of research is fiber optic distributed sensors and opto-acoustic measurements. He is interested in sensor application of polymer fiber, acoustic measurements based on optical method and optical/ultrasonic sensing devices. He is currently a chairman of Lightwave Sensing Technology Group in The Japan Society of Applied Physics.

Prof. Libo Yuan (Harbin Engineering University, China) Brief CV

Libo Yuan, (Ph.D.) is professor and director of Key Lab of In-Fiber Integrated Optics (Harbin Engineering University), Ministry of Education of China. His general area of research is in-fiber integrated optics devices and fiber-optic sensors. He has led 28 projects as principle investigator, include a project of major program of national natural science foundation of China. He has authored and co-authored over 150 referred international journals papers and over 200 international conference papers mainly in the area of fiber optics and fiber optic sensors. He holds over 100 patents and published 3 books and 3 book chapters.

Local Advisory
Committee
Organizing
Committee
Technical Program
Committee
International
Honorary Committee
International
Steering Committee

Local Advisory Committee

Dr. Sang Bae Lee (Korea Institute of Science and Technology, Korea) Brief CV

Sang Bae Lee is currently the President of Optical Society of Korea (OSK) and Principal Researcher of Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST). He earned the PhD degree in Physics from Sogang University. His research interest is in the area of fiber optics. His research themes are: development of special optical fibers, fiber grating devices, fiber grating sensor, and fiber lasers. He was awarded the Order of the Star of Italian Solidarity (2009) and the Order of Science and Technology Merit of Korea (2011). He is a Fellow of OSA and OSK.

Prof. Byoung Yoon Kim (KAIST, Korea) Brief CV

Byoung Yoon Kim is currently the founding director of Institute for Startup KAIST and Professor of Physics at KAIST where he also served as Vice President of Research. He previously held a faculty position at and earned his PhD in applied physics from Stanford University. His research focus is fiber optics, and he founded FiberPro and Novera Optics. He is a Fellow of IEEE, OSA, Optical Society of Korea, and Institute of Physics, and a member of the Korean Academy of Science and Technology

Dr. Moon Su Oh (Fiberpro, Korea) Brief CV

Moonsu Oh is a technical adviser in Fiber Optic Gyro and Inertial Navigation team of FIBERPRO, Inc. Daejeon, Korea since 2011. Moonsu received his B.S. and Ph.D. in Physics from Sogang University. He was a TPC member of the OFS conferences for 7 years.
He had been working on inertial technology including fiber optic gyro (FOG), ring laser gyro (RLG) and inertial navigation systems (INS) at Agency for Defence Development (ADD) in Korea for 32 years , where he led numerous inertial sensor and system development, realization and application programs, also served as head of the department for electro-optics and inertial technology.

Organizing Committee

Prof. Jinho Bae (Jeju National University, Korea) Brief CV

Jinho Bae received his Ph.D. degree from Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), Daejeon, Republic of Korea, in 2001. During 1993 and 2002, he was a member of the technical staff at Daeyang Electric Co., Busan, Republic of Korea. During 2006 and 2007, he was a visiting scholar of electrical and computer engineering department of Texas A&M University, Collage Station, TX, USA. During 2013 and 2014, he was a visiting scholar of electrical engineering department of UCSC, Santa Cruz, CA, USA. Since 2002, he has been a faculty member in the Department of Ocean System Engineering at Jeju National University. His current research interests include functional electronic polymeric materials, printed electronics, layer peeling problem, and optical signal processing.

Prof. Young-Geun Han (Hanyang University, Korea)

Prof. Min Yong Jeon (Chungnam National University, Korea) Brief CV

Min Yong Jeon is a professor in the department of Physics at Chungnam National University, Daejeon, Korea. He received the B.S. degree from Han Yang University, Seoul, in 1988, and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), Daejeon, Korea, in 1990 and 1994, respectively, all in physics. Prior to joining Chungnam National University, he worked in the area of optical router, as a Research Scientist at the University of California, Davis. From 1994 to 2001, he worked in the area of the optical network subsystem at the Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI), Daejeon, Korea. His current research interests are fiber lasers, optical fiber sensors, terahertz photonics, and bio-photonics.

Prof. Chang-Seok Kim (Pusan National University, Korea) Brief CV

Chang-Seok Kim received the B.S. degree from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Daejeon, Korea, in 1996, the M.S. degree from the Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology, Gwangju, Korea, in 1999, andthe Ph.D. degree from The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA, in 2004. From 1999 to 2000, he was a Research Engineer of Korea Telecom, Daejeon. From 2004 to 2005, he was a Postdoctoral Researcher with the Beckman Laser Institute and Medical Clinic, University of California, Irvine. Since 2005, he has been a Professor at the Department of Cogno-Mechatronics Engineering, Pusan National University, Busan, Republic of Korea. His research interest includes development of novel fiber laser systems and application of them into biomedical, telecommunication, and sensor areas.

Dr. Myoung Jin Kim (Korea Photonics Technology Institute, Korea)
Dr. Yeon Wan Koh (Fiberpro, Korea)

Dr. Il-Bum Kwon (Korea Research Inst. of Standards and Science, Korea) Brief CV

Il-Bum Kwon received his Ph.D. from Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology(KAIST) in 1997. His major field of study was aerospace engineering with specialization in structural health monitoring using fiber optic sensors. He has been employed by Pohang Research Institute of Industrial Science and Technology (RIST/POSCO) since February 1989 and conducted research in rolling research laboratory until August 1992. Currently, he is working for a principal research scientist of center for safety measurements in Korea Research Institute of Standards and Science since March 1997. His research interests include fiber optic sensors for structural health monitoring, fiber optic distributed sensors, and specialty fibers for sensor network. His societal memberships include SPIE, OSA

Prof. Byeongha Lee (Gwangju Inst. of Science and Tech., Korea) Brief CV

Professor B.H. Lee received the Bachelor of Science and M. Sc. degree in Physics from Seoul National University, Korea in 1984 and 1989, respectively, and the Ph. D. degree in Physics (Optics) from Colorado University @ Boulder, USA in 1996. He has held the professor position at the School of Information and Communications (now the name is changed to School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science) of Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology (GIST), Korea since 1999. Before going abroad for getting the Ph. D. degree he had worked as a researcher at Goldstar (LG) Cable Research Institute and Hyundai Advent Co. for several years. His research interests cover the design and analysis of various optical fiber sensors, 3-dimensional optical imaging systems for biomedical applications, and digital holography with over 150 technical journal publications. He is operating a laboratory named 'Applied Optics Laboratory'. Prof. Lee is a senior member of Optical Society of America.

Prof. Jung-Ryul Lee (Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Korea) Brief CV

J R Lee (Full name in Korean: Jung-Ryul Lee) is associate professor of the Department of Aerospace Engineering in Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, South Korea where he joined in 2015. Before this career movement, he was assistant and associate professor in Chonbuk National University where he joined in 2007. He served as a co-director of the LANL-CBNU Engineering Institute-Korea between Los Alamos National Lab and Chonbuk National University from July 2011 to Dec 2014. He was a visiting scholar of Los Alamos National Laboratory in US from Aug 2013 to July 2014.
He received his MS from KAIST in Korea, and Ph.D from Ecole Nationale Superieure Des Mines de Saint-Etienne in France with the 1st class honor in 2004. Before joining the university, he has been a scientific staff member at the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology in Japan and a research associate at Ecole Nationale Superieure Des Mines De Saint-Etienne. His research interest includes Smart Hangar (Inventor), integrated systems health monitoring, fiber optic, remote and wireless sensing, advanced nondestructive evaluation and measurement, pyroshock, laser ultrasonics, optics in engineering, and microwave imaging. His application field encompasses space launchers, unmanned air vehicles, wind turbine, power plants, railway structures, automobile, public safety and radome/stealth structures. He has published over 300 articles and patents in this area, and received several awards, including Emerging Researcher Award in 2007 by the Japanese Society for Nondestructive Inspection, one of 16 Excellent Emerging Researchers Award in 2011 by Ministry of Education, Science & Technology in Korea, Excellent R&D Achievement Award in 2013 by Jeonbuk Province, and Young Scientist Awards in 2015 and 2016 by Korean Composite Material Society and International Sustainable Aviation Research Society (SARES), respectively. His research team was appointed as Global Research & Development Center in 2011. A proof-of-concept paper of Smart Hangar authored by him and his student won the grand prize of the best papers in 2013 from Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport in Korea.
He serves a co-chair of International Conference on ASHMCS2012 and 2014, a guest editor for ACM, JIMSS, SAV, SHM-IJ, Strain and an editorial board member of SHM-IJ, ACM, WSJ. He produced 2 postdocs, 5 Ph.Ds and 13 Masters by Feb 2016. He got married and they have two daughters. Contact: leejrr@kaist.ac.kr.

Dr. Kwanil Lee (Korea Institute of Science and Technology, Korea) Brief CV

Kwanil Lee is currently a principal researcher at Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST). His current research interests are fiber-optic sensors, fiber lasers, fiber optic communications, and nanophotonics. He previously worked in the field of access network and communication components with Novera Optics Inc. He received the B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in physics from Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea.

Prof. Kwang Yong Song (Chung-Ang Univ., Korea) Brief CV

Kwang Yong Song is a specialist of the applications of Brillouin scattering and spatial modes in optical fibers, and his research topics include Brillouin slow light, distributed Brillouin sensors, Brillouin dynamic gratings, and active / passive mode multiplexers. Prof. Song received his Ph. D degree in physics at KAIST and worked as a post-doctoral researcher at EPFL in Switzerland and the University of Tokyo in Japan. Since 2007 He has been working as a professor in Dept. of Physics at Chung-Ang University in Korea

Prof. Minho Song (Chonbuk National University, Korea) Brief CV

Minho Song is currently a professor in Electronic Engineering, Chonbuk National University (South Korea.) Current research interests are focused on optical technologies for safety and condition monitoring of electrical power systems. He received the Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Seoul National University in 1997. Before he joined Chonbuk National University, he worked at Pennsylvania State University and Korea Electrical Engineering & Science Research Institute. He is a senior member of the Optical Society of America.

Prof. Satoshi Tanaka (National Defense Academy of Japan, Japan) Brief CV

Satoshi Tanaka received the B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in applied physics from Hokkaido University (Sapporo, Japan). From 1989 to 1998, he was with Department of Engineering Science, Hokkaido University as a Research Associate, where he was involved in research on fiber-optic interferometric sensors. Since 1998, he joined National Defense Academy. His current research interests include fiber-optic sensors using FBGs and LPFGs. He is a member of OSA, SPIE and IEEE.

Technical Program Committee

Prof. Jacques Albert (Carleton Univ., Canada) Brief CV

[Americas]

Jacques Albert received a B.Sc. in Physics from Université de Montréal in 1978, the M.Sc. in Physics from Université Laval in 1980 and the Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from McGill University in 1988. He worked at the Communications Research Center of Canada, Innovative Fibers, Alcatel Optronics Canada, and since 2004 he holds the Canada Research Chair in Advanced Photonic Components at Carleton University in Ottawa, leading a multidisciplinary research effort in optical fiber sensing. He is a Fellow of the Optical Society of America and received an Outstanding Reviewer Award from the OSA in 2014. He co-chaired the OSA Topical meeting on Bragg Gratings, Photosensitivity and Poling between 2003 and 2007, as well as OFS’21 held in 2011. He has co-authored over 150 journal publications, including several invited papers and 6 patents

Dr. Chris Baldwin (Weatherford, USA) Brief CV

Chris Baldwin is currently the Strategic Technology Manager for Completion and Reservoir Monitoring at Weatherford. Current research interests are focused on oil & gas applications of optical fiber sensor technology including pressure, temperature, and acoustic sensing. Previously, Chris was the Technical Director for Aither Engineering, serving as Principal Investigator on multiple US DoD contracts concerned with the development of optical sensing systems for structural health monitoring, shape sensing, chemical analysis, and harsh environment applications. Chris has a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Maryland with a focus on structural sensing with optical fiber sensors.

Prof. Xiaoyi Bao (Univ. of Ottawa, Canada) Brief CV

Xiaoyi Bao is the Canada Research Chair professor (Tier I) in Fiber Optics and Photonics in Center for Research in Photonics, physics department, University of Ottawa, Canada. Her research interests range from study of nonlinear effects in fibers to make fiber device, fiber lasers and fiber sensing instrumentation for physical, chemical and bio sensing, fabrication of micro and nano-fibers and structured fibers using specialty fibers. She is a fellow of Royal Society of Canada (RSC), OSA and SPIE.

Prof. Michael Digonnet (Stanford Univ., USA)

Prof. José Luís Fabris (Federal Univ. of Tech., Brazil) Brief CV

Dr. José L. Fabris received the B.Sc. in Physics from the Federal University of Paraná (Paraná, Brazil) in 1986, the M.Sc. degree from the Fluminense Federal University (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) in 1989 and Ph.D. degree from the University of São Paulo (São Paulo, Brazil), in 1994. His research focused on color center lasers and laser spectroscopy. He is currently full Professor at Federal University of Technology – PR - UTFPR in Curitiba, Paraná, Brazil. He is co-head of the research Group on Photonics Devices and Applications at UTFPR, and helped to found the Laser Laboratory at UTFPR in 1996, where he is a laboratory co-director nowadays. His current main research area is photonics, with special interest in optical fiber grating based sensors and spectroscopy. He has authored and co-authored more than 160 scientific journal and conference papers, as well as patents in the field of photonics. Prof. Fabris is a member of OSA (The Optical Society), SBF (Brazilian Society of Physics) and SBMO (Brazilian Society of Microwaves and Optoelectronics).

Dr. Marcos A.R. Franco (Instituto de Estudos Avançados, Brazil) Brief CV

Marcos A. R. Franco received his degree in physics from the Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo, Brazil, and his Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from the University of São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil, in 1999. He is a Researcher in the Institute of Advanced Studies (IEAv), São José dos Campos, Brazil. He is the leader of the Computational Electromagnetics Laboratory in IEAv. He has published about 110 papers, mainly in international journals and conference proccedings, and his present research interests include the computational modeling of electromegnetic devices, specialty optical fibers, fiber optic sensors, microwave and terahertz devices.

Dr. Juan Hernandez-Cordero (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico) Brief CV

Juan Hernández-Cordero received his BSc. degree in electrical engineering from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) in 1992. After completing a year as a research and assistant at the Materials Research Institute (IIM) of the UNAM, he was awarded a full scholarship to pursue graduate studies at Brown University. He earned a Master's and Ph.D. degrees from the Division of Engineering at Brown in 1996 and 1998, respectively. He then spent a year as a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Laboratory for Lightwave Technology in Boston University. He is currently a full time tenured researcher at the Materials Research Institute (IIM) of the UNAM, where he has established the Laboratory for Fiber Lasers and Optical Fiber Sensors. His fields of interest include optical fiber sensors, fiber lasers and fiber devices; currently, he is also pursuing research in random lasers and optical fiber traps for materials science applications.

Dr. Clay Kirkendall (Naval Research Laboratory, USA) Brief CV

Clay Kirkendall has been Head of the Fiber Optic Sensor Section at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, DC since 1999. The section consists of multiple groups performing research and development of advanced photonic sensors for Navy applications. He has been involved in fiber sensor development from basic research in novel sensing techniques through the development and fielding of fiber optic sensor systems on operational Navy platforms.

Dr. Robert A. Lieberman (Lumoptix LLC, USA) Brief CV

President, IOS. PhD. (Physics) University of Michigan 1981; Bell Laboratories 1981-1991; Physical Optics Corp. 1991-1998; founded IOS 1998. 34 U.S. patents, Chair of more than 25 conferences on optical sensors. Current Activities: Applied bio/chemical/physical sensor R&D; high-tech business development, science policy. Fellow, SPIE; Senior Member IEEE; Subcommittee Chair, ASTM.

Prof. Aleksander Sade Paterno (Universidade do Estado de Santa Catarina , Brazil) Brief CV

A. S. Paterno received the B.Sc. in Electronics and Telecommunications Engineering and the Ph.D. degree from the Federal University of Technology - Paraná. His research focuses on fiber optic sensors and devices with applications mainly in biomedical engineering and industry. He is associate professor in the electrical engineering department and assistant director of graduate studies at the Santa Catarina State University. He is also member of the Brazilian Society for Microwaves and Optoelectronics.

Prof. Gary R. Pickrell (Center for Photonics Tech., USA) Brief CV

Professor in the Materials Science and Engineering Department, the Rolls Royce Commonwealth Director of Surface Engineering for the Commonwealth Center for Advanced Manufacturing, the Director of the Nano-Bio Materials Laboratory and the Associate Director for the Center for Photonics Technology, in ECE at Virginia Tech. Named a Fellow of the International Photonics Society (SPIE) 2016, Rudolph A Marcus Award in 2015, Faculty Fellow 2007, Outstanding Assistant Professor 2005, R&D 100 award 2004. He has authored or edited 16 books, 4 special Journal issues, over 200 publications (cited >2000 times), and 16 patents. His industrial experience includes positions from process engineer to member of the Board of Directors. He has authored or co-authored His publications have been. He has chaired ~ 25 International Conferences on Optical Materials and Devices, Nanotechnology, and Advanced Materials. He has been on the organizing committee of over 30 international conferences and has chaired ~ 50 sessions at leading international conferences. Dr. Pickrell has been a principal investigator or co-PI on over $12 million dollars in funded research at Virginia Tech with a personal share of ~$6 million. He has been selected as an invited delegate/presenter at the joint US-Japan Workshop (on earthquake detection) sponsored by the United States Geological Society and Japanese Geological Society in Tskuba, Japan 2001; Invited participant at US Department of Energy Workshop on Sensors and Controls, 2001 and 2002; Invited delegate to joint US NSF-European Science Foundation workshop on civil infrastructure monitoring, in Strasburg, France, 2003; Invited delegate at joint US NSF-Chinese NSF workshop on Fiber Optic Sensors, in Wuhan, China, 2009; Invited participant to US Department of Energy Workshop on Advanced Sensing in Power Generation Systems, 2009.

Prof. Kara Peters (North Carolina State University, USA) Brief CV

Dr. Kara Peters is a Professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at North Carolina State University. She received her PhD in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Michigan in 1996. For her dissertation work, she received the Ivor K. McIvor Award for Applied Mechanics at the University of Michigan. Following her PhD, Dr. Peters worked as Post-Doctoral Researcher in the Laboratory of Applied Mechanics at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (Swiss Institute of Technology at Lausanne). Dr. Peters is a member of the ASME Adaptive Structures and Material Systems Technical Committee and was the chair of the SPIE Smart Structures and Materials Symposium in 2010 and 2011. She is an Associate Editor of the journal Smart Materials and Structures and on the editorial board of Measurement Science and Technology. Currently, Dr. Peters is serving as a rotator as the Program Manager of the Mechanics of Materials and Structures Program at the National Science Foundation.

Dr. João Batista Rosolem (Telecommunication Research and Development Center, Brazil) Brief CV

Joao Batista Rosolem was born in Fartura, SP, Brazil, in 1963. He received the B.S., M.Sc., and Ph.D. degrees in electric engineering from the University of Sao Paulo, São Carlos, Brazil, in 1986, 1990, and 2005, respectively. Since 1990, he is a researcher of CPqD Telecommunication Research and Development Center, Campinas, Brazil. He has been involved in the design of optical sensing system and research in optical sensors for utilities application, such as, FBG, DTS and PoF and optical amplifiers. He has also been engaged in the development of access wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) transmission systems. Dr. Rosolem is member of SPIE and OSA and is author of over 150 journal and conference papers. He is the holder of 3 U.S. patents and more than 20 additional patents are pending in the Brazil.

Dr. Steve Sanders (Honeywell Int., USA) Brief CV

Dr. Steve Sanders is an Engineering Fellow in the Sensing Guidance and Navigation organization of Honeywell Aerospace. Steve received his B.S in Engineering Physics from UC Berkeley and a PhD in Applied Physics from Caltech. His PhD thesis was on basic plasma physics and spectroscopic diagnostics of plasmas. He has been at Honeywell for 18 years, working on inertial and non-inertial sensors for navigation and pointing systems. In that time he has led numerous fiber-optic gyro (FOG) development programs. Today he manages Honeywell’s FOG optical design and systems engineering group. Steve has 12 patents in optical and inertial sensors.

Dr. Ismael Torres (Instituto de Investigaciones en Optica , Mexico) Brief CV

Ismael Torres-Gómez, received his BS in Electrical Engineering from Facultad de Ingeniería Mecánica, Eléctrica y Electrónica (FIMEE Salamanca, Gto.), Universidad de Guanajuato. He obtained his PhD in Optics (optical fibers) from Centro de Investigaciones en Óptica, A.C. in León Gto. He realized a postdoctoral stay in the Bradley Department of the Electrical and Computer Engineering at the Polytechnic Institute & State University, Blacksburg VA, USA. Ismael Torres-Gómez has done research on different topic of the optical fiber field, such as non-linear effects, photonic crystal fibers, lasers and devices based on optical fiber. Currently, he is working on plastic optical fiber applications; data transmission, sensing and lighting for the automobile.

Prof. Pedro Torres Trujillo (Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Colombia) Brief CV

Founder of Photonic Laboratory at National University of Colombia, Medellín campus. Head of the Photonics & Optoelectronics Group. His research interests include micro- and nano-structured fiber sensors including the photonic crystal fibers and gratings sensors. He is author or coauthor of more than 90 papers published in international journals and conference proceedings. He holds five patents.

Dr. Scott Foster (Defence Science and Tech. Organisation, Australia) Brief CV

[Asia-Pacific]

Scott Foster is a Senior Research Scientist with the Defence Science and Technology Group (DSTG) in Adelaide South Australia. After obtaining a Ph.D. in mathematical physics from the University of Adelaide in 1996, he worked as a physicist in the opto-electronics industry for 3 years before joining DSTG as a Research Scientist in 1999. Since 2003 he has led research into advanced photonic sensor technologies for undersea surveillance. He has authored over 40 journal and conference papers including important works on distributed feedback fibre lasers and on the fundamental noise limits of fibre optic measurement. He works closely with Australian industry to transition novel technologies into defence capability including advanced fibre optic sonar systems. His research interests include fibre optic sensors, fibre lasers, laser noise, advanced interferometry, acoustics and magnetometry.

Prof. Bai-Ou Guan (Jinan Univ., China) Brief CV

Bai-Ou Guan received the Ph.D. degree in optics from Nankai University, Tianjin, China, in 2000. From 2000 to 2005, he was with the Department of Electrical Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, first as a Research Associate, and then as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow. From 2005 to 2009, he was with School of Physics and Optoelectronic Engineering, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian, as a Full Professor. In 2009, he joined Jinan University, Guangzhou, where he founded the Institute of Photonics Technology. His current research interests include fiber optic devices and technologies, optical fiber sensors, biomedical photonic sensing and imaging, and microwave photonics. He has authored and coauthored more than 140 papers in the peer-reviewed international journals, and presented 50 invited talks at international and national conferences. He received the Distinguished Young Scientist Grant from Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) in 2012. He is a member of IEEE and OSA, and has served as General Chair/Co-Chair, Technical Program Committee or Subcommittee Chair/Co-Chair for over 10 international conferences.

Prof. Zuyuan He (Shanghai Jiao Tong Univ., China) Brief CV

Zuyuan He received B.S. and M.S. degrees in Electronic Engineering from Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China, in 1984 and 1987, respectively, and a Ph.D. degree in Optoelectronics from the University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan, in 1999. He joined Nanjing University of Science and Technology, Nanjing, China as a Research Associate in 1987, and became a Lecturer in 1990. From 1995 to 1996, he was a visiting researcher in the Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology (RCAST), University of Tokyo. In 1999, he became a Research Associate of the University of Tokyo. In 2001, he joined CIENA Corporation, Maryland, USA, as a Lead Engineer heading the optical testing and optical process development group. He returned to the University of Tokyo as a Lecturer in 2003, and became an Associate Professor in 2005 and a full Professor in 2010. He is now a Chair Professor and the Director of the State Key Laboratory of Advanced Optical Communication Systems and Networks, Shanghai Jiao Tong University. His current research interests include optical fiber sensors, specialty optical fibers, and optical interconnection. Prof. He has been serving as the General Chair of 2014 International Conference of Asia Communications and Photonics (ACP 2014), the General Chair of 2016 International Conference of Asia-Pacific Optical Sensors (APOS 2016), and the Associate Editor of IEEE/OSA Journal of Lightwave Technology.

Prof. Yoonchan Jeong (Seoul Nat'lUniv., Korea) Brief CV

Yoonchan Jeong obtained his Ph.D. in 1999 from the School of Electrical Engineering, Seoul National University, Korea, for research in the area of fiber and nonlinear optics. Subsequently, he held a two years’ postdoctoral fellowship at the same university. He joined the Optoelectronics Research Centre (ORC) at the University of Southampton in 2001 as a Research Fellow and became a Reader in 2006. He returned to the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Seoul National University as a faculty member in 2010 and is now an Associate Professor.

His early research covered holographic data storage, displays, fiber and waveguide optics, nonlinear optics, and lasers. Following the initial wide experience with fundamentals in optics and lasers, his research interests have moved to high-power and ultrafast fiber lasers since 2001 and further to laser physics and quantum photonics since 2010. His work has led to over 250 publications, including patents, book contributions, and journal/conference papers.

He served and has been serving on various program committees for international photonics conferences and societies, including the Fiber Lasers VI: Technology, Systems and Applications (Part of Laser Source Engineering, Photonics West, SPIE, 2008-2013), the Advanced Solid-State Photonics/Lasers (OSA, since 2011), and Optical Sensors (Part of Advanced Photonics, OSA, since 2015). He has served an Associate Editor for Optics Express (OSA, 2009-2015). He has been serving a Board of Editors for JOSK (OSK, since 2009) and a steering committee member for Siegman International School on Lasers (since 2013).

Dr. Brendan Kennedy (Univ. of Western Australia, Australia) Brief CV

I graduated with a PhD in the field of Optical Communications from Dublin City University, Ireland, in March 2006.
From 2006-2007, I was employed as a teaching and research academic in the Department of Electrical Engineering at the University of Santiago, Chile.
I arrived in Western Australia in April 2008 and since then have worked in the Optical+Biomedical Engineering Laboratory (OBEL) at The University of Western Australia.
I currently lead the micro-elastography team at UWA, consisting of 1 Postdoctoral researcher, 4 PhD students, 1 Masters’ student and 2 honours students.
I have published 3 book chapters, 42 journal papers, 16 refereed conference papers and over 50 conference abstracts. I am an inventor on 3 filed patents.
I currently hold, as first-named Chief Investigator, an ARC Discovery Grant, an NHMRC Project Grant and a National Breast Cancer Foundation Innovator Grant.
I have published three invited reviews and one of my publications has featured on a journal cover. My research has been featured 6 times in virtual journals, in one editorial, in four popular articles and websites and twice in monthly Top Ten Downloads lists.
I have 1075 citations and a H-Index of 19 in Google Scholar.

Dr. Il-Bum Kwon (Korea Research Inst. of Standards and Science, Korea) Brief CV

Prof. Byeongha Lee (Gwangju Inst. of Science and Tech., Korea) Brief CV

Prof. Yosuke Mizuno (Tokyo Inst. of Tech., Japan) Brief CV

Yosuke Mizuno received the B.E., M.E., and Dr.Eng. degrees in electronic engineering from the University of Tokyo in 2005, 2007, and 2010, respectively. From 2007 to 2010, he worked on Brillouin optical correlation-domain reflectometry (BOCDR) for his Dr.Eng. degree. From 2010 to 2012, as a JSPS Research Fellow (PD), he worked on polymer optics at Tokyo Institute of Technology as well as at BAM, Germany. Since 2012, he has been an Assistant Professor at Tokyo Institute of Technology, where he is active in fiber-optic sensing, polymer optics, and ultrasonics. He has authored nearly 100 refereed journal papers and has given more than 10 invited talks at international conferences including OFS-23 and APOS 2016.

Prof. Hideaki Murayama (The Univ. of Tokyo, Japan) Brief CV

He is an associate professor of School of Engineering, the University of Tokyo and a member of the Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers, the Society of Naval Architectures of Japan, the Japan Society for Composite Materials, Japan Society of Civil Engineers and Japan Society of Maintenology. His research topics are structural health monitoring with fiber-optic sensors and composite structures. He received the B.E., M.E., and Dr.Eng. degrees in the University of Tokyo in 1996, 1998, 2001, respectively.

Dr. Kazuhide Nakajima (NTT Corporation, Japan) Brief CV

Kazuhide Nakajima engaged in research on optical fiber design and related measurement techniques. Dr. Nakajima is currently a Group Leader (Distinguished Technical Member) of NTT Access Network Service Systems Laboratories. He is a TPC of OFC since 2015, and he is also acting as a Rapporteur of Q5/SG15 of ITU-T since 2009.

Mr. Koji Omichi (Fujikura Ltd., Japan) Brief CV

Group manager of Advanced Technology Laboratory, Fujikura Ltd.
He has been working on developing specialty fibers and fiber-optic components for telecom, fiber laser, and fiber-optic sensor applications. His current research interests are multi-core fiber technology, silicon photonics, and their applications to fiber-optic sensors.

Prof. Bishnu Pal (Mahindra Ecole Centrale Hyderabad, India) Brief CV

Bishnu Pal is currently a Professor of Physics at the School of Natural Sciences in the newly established Mahindra Ecole Centrale College of Engineering at Hyderabad India in collaboration with CentraleSupelec France. He was formerly at Indian Institute of Technology Delhi India for over 35 years. He was Professor of Physics for over 24 years at IIT Delhi and has been its Head of Department during 2008-2011; prior to which he also headed the Computer Services Center of the Institute during 2002-2005. Prof Pal has extensive teaching and sponsored research experience in application-specific specialty fiber designs, fiber characterization experiments, all-fiber component design and fabrication, silicon photonics based sensors and components, fiber optic sensors, fibers for mid-IR and THz photonics, and has reported over 200 papers in journals and international conferences in addition to over 50 invited and plenary presentations at international conferences. He is a Fellow of OSA and SPIE, Honorary Foreign member of the Royal Norwegian Academy of Sciences Norway, Senior Member of IEEE Photonics Society, and has received the Esther Hoffman Beller Medal of OSA for 2016 and several national awards like Homi Bhabha award in applied sciences from UGC, Om Prakash Bhasin award in Electronics and Information Technology from OPB Foundation for Science and Technology, Khosla research award from IIT Roorkee for life time achievements, and Prof Y T Thathachari prestigious research award in Physical Sciences from Bhramara Trust Mysore. He has been a member of the Board of Directors of OSA The Optical Society for 2009-2011, and President of the Optical Society of India (2012-2015). Prof Pal has been on the Editorial Advisory Boards of 8 journals, and has significantly contributed to education and dissemination in India as well as liaising with the international community on Optics & Photonics.

Prof. Yun-Jiang Rao (Univ. of Electronic Science and Tech., China) Brief CV

Prof. Yun-Jiang Rao was a Research Fellow/Senior Research Fellow from 1992 to 1999 at the University of Kent at Canterbury, UK. From 1999 to 2004, he was the Chang-Jiang Chair Professor in Optical Engineering and Head of the Optical Fiber Technology Group at Chongqing University, China. From 2005 to 2013, he was the Dean of School of Communication and Information Engineering, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China (UESTC). He is currently the Chang-Jiang Chair Professor in Optical Engineering, and the Director of the Key Lab of Optical Fiber Sensing & Communications and the International Innovation Base (111 project) in Optical Fiber Sensing & Communications (Ministry of Education, China). He has published >400 papers in international journals and conferences as well as several book chapters and two books (in Chinese). His publications are cited by >7700 times with H-index of 42 (Google Scholar). He was an Associate Editor of IEEE/OSA Journal of Lightwave Technology (2009-2014). He is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Springer journal Photonic Sensors (ESCI). He serves as a TPC member of International Conferences on Optical Fiber Sensors (OFS) and the TPC Co-Chair of OFS-22. He is the founder of Asia-Pacific Optical Sensors Conferences (APOS). Prof. Rao is fellows of both OSA and SPIE.
Contact information: Email: yjrao@uestc.edu.cn, Mobile: +86-13980855505.

Dr. Takanori Saitoh (Anritsu Devices Co., Ltd., Japan) Brief CV

Takanori Saitoh is working for Anritsu Corporation. He received a PhD. from Tokyo Institute of Technology in 1998. He is an Expert Research Engineer of Business Originating Center. His current research interests are optical fiber sensing system, optical spectrum analyzer and developing of new FBG interrogators with high speed and high resolution. He is an expert member of TC86/SC86C in IEC since 2012.

Prof. Kwang Yong Song (Chung-Ang Univ., Korea) Brief CV

Prof. Minghong Yang (Wuhan Univ. of Tech., China) Brief CV

Minghong Yang is a professor in Optics technology at the National Engineering Laboratory for Fiber Optic Sensing Technology (Wuhan University of Technology, China.). He obtained his PhD degree in Physical electronics from the Huazhong University of Science and Technology, China in 2003. He was with Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Optics and Precision Engineering, Jena, Germany from 2003 to 2005, and then with Berlin University for Technology from 2006 to 2009. He was with the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, U.S.A for half a yaer in 2013 as visiting Professor, and was with Abbe School for Photonics, Friedlich-Schiller-University, Germany as guest professor in 2014. His current research interests include optical fiber sensors, sensing materials, sensor aplications. Prof. Yang has been serving as the General Chair of the fourth International Conference of Asia-Pacific Optical Sensors (APOS 2013), and the Associate Editor of IEEE Sensors Journal.

Prof. Ole Bang (Technical Univ. of Denmark, Denmark) Brief CV

[Europe]

Ole Bang is Professor at DTU Fotonik, Technical University of Denmark, where he heads the Fiber Sensors & Supercontinuum group with 17 people and in charge of 6 labs. Ole Bang is an OSA Felllow and a topical editor of Optics Letters. His group fabricates their own polymer and softglass fibers for supercontinuum light sources and for fiber-optical sensing applications. The main sensing applications are within strain, humidity, pressure, and temperature sensing, as welll as in bioosensing. The group has recently established the spin-off company SHUTE Sensing Solutions based on their developed polymer optical fiber sensing technology.

Prof. Francis Berghmans (VUB Brussels, Belgium) Brief CV

F. Berghmans was born in Ukkel (Belgium) in 1969. He received his Ph.D. in Applied Sciences in 1998 from the VUB (Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussels, Belgium). In 1993 he joined the Belgian nuclear research center SCK•CEN, where he served as head of the Instrumentation Department and as leader of the Expert Group on Advanced Reactor Instrumentation. At SCK•CEN he supervised research in the field of radiation effects on photonic devices and optical fiber sensors. In 2007 he joined Vrije Universiteit Brussel. He holds a full professor position and is a member of the Applied Physics and Photonics Department and of the Brussels Photonics Team B-PHOT (www.b-phot.org), where he supervises research activities in the field of micro-optical sensors and photonic crystal fibers and teaches physics to bachelor students in engineering sciences as well as photonics to master students in photonics engineering. He has been involved in many collaborative research projects financed by various instances including the European Commission, the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO) and the Agency for Innovation by Science and Technology – Flanders (IWT). He currently serves as vice-coordinator of the Integrated Project ‘Access Center for Photonics Innovation Solutions and Technology Support – ACTPHAST’ (www.actphast.eu) and is partnering in the Marie Sklodowska Curie Action - European Training Network ‘Fibre Nervous Sensing Systems – FINESSE’ (www.itn-finesse.eu), both funded by the European Union. F. Berghmans is (co-)author of 104 journal papers and 165 publications in international conference proceedings indexed by the Web of Science Core Collection. He is general co-chair of SPIE Photonics Europe and fellow of SPIE.

Dr. Gabriele Bolognini (IMM Inst., Italy) Brief CV

Research Scientist at IMM Institute of National Research Council. Responsible for fiber optic sensor activities. He has published more than 100 papers, is inventor of 6 patents and has co-funded a spin-off company. His research interests include Raman- and Brillouin-based sensors, FBG sensors, nonlinear fiber optics and silicon photonics. He coordinates EU-funded and industrial projects on photonics and sensing and is a member of IEC SC86C/WG2 for fiber optic sensors standardization.

Dr. Gilberto Brambilla (Univ. of Southampton, UK) Brief CV

Gilberto Brambilla is a professor in Photonics at the Optoelectronics Research Centre (University of Southampton, U.K.) and General Manager and Deputy Director of the Future Photonics Hub. He obtained his MSc (Material Engineering) with honours from Politecnico di Milano (Italy) and his PhD degree in Optoelectronics from the ORC in 2002. In 2007 he was awarded a Research Fellowship from the Royal Society. He has been the Director of the EPSRC Centre for Innovative Manufacturing in Photonics until 2015. His research interests include: point fibre sensors; design and fabrication of rare earth doped scintillating fibres; material structuring using fs lasers; manufacture of UV fibre lasers; fabrication of devices based on optical fibre nanowires, fibre tapers and couplers; fabrication of delivery fibres and systems. He has published >300 papers in international scientific journals/conferences, authored 4 patents and gave more than 30 invited/keynote/plenary talks over the 5 continents.

Prof. Andrea Cusano (Univ. of Sannio, Italy) Brief CV

Andrea Cusano received Laurea degree cum Laude in Electronic and Telecommunication Engineering and the Ph.D in Optoelectronics from University of Naples (Federico II, Italy). He is currently Associate Professor at the Engineering Department of University of Sannio where he and Prof. Cutolo co-founded the Optoelectronic Group since 2002. He has published over 140 journal articles and 180 refereed conference communications related to the development of new fiber optic and photonic sensors for physical, chemical and biological sensing applications.
In this context, he has also co-authored more than 10 chapters published in international books and invited papers in many prestigious international journals.
He has been co-editor of several Special Issues related to photonics technologies for sensing applications published in prestigious International journals as the case of IEEE Sensors, IEEE Photonics, IEEE/OSA Journal of Lightwave Technology. He is Co-Editor of 7 international books and has 4 international patents with major industrial companies (Ansaldo STS, Alenia WASS, Optosmart and MdTEch) and more than 10 national patents.
He actually serves as Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Optics and Laser Technology (Elsevier) and as Associate Editor for the IEEE/OSA Journal of Lightwave Technologies and Journal of Photonic Sensors (Springer).
He is a member of the technical committee of several international conferences such as IEEE Sensors, ICST, EWSHM, EWOFS. Prof. Cusano is cofounder of two spin-off companies “OptoSmart S.r.l.” (2005) and “Optoadvance” (2011) and has been consultant for major companies of the Finmeccanica group such as Ansaldo STS and Alenia WASS. He has also collaborations with CERN in Geneva where he is working on the development of innovative sensors for high energy physics applications. He received many international recognitions and awards for efforts in the development of innovative optical sensing systems and has been Principal Investigator of many national and international projects. Finally, in 2015, he was nominated Technical director of a public-private aggregation (Top-in Optoelectronic Technologies for Industry) including several national research centers, 3 big companies from Finmeccanica (actually Leonardo and Hitachi Group)and 11 SMEs.

Prof. Miguel Gonzalez-Herraez (Univ. of Alcalá, Spain) Brief CV

Miguel González-Herráez received the M.Eng. and D.Eng. degrees from the Polytechnic University of Madrid, Madrid, Spain, in 2000 and 2004, respectively. While working towards the D.Eng. degree, he worked first as a Research Assistant and then a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Applied Physics Institute at the Spanish Council for Research, Madrid, Spain, and had several long stays in the Nanophotonics and Metrology Laboratory, Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne, Switzerland. In October 2004, he was appointed Assistant Professor in the Department of Electronics, University of Alcalá, Madrid, Spain, where he was promoted to Associate Professor in June 2006. He is the author or coauthor of >100 papers in international refereed journals and >100 conference contributions and has given >15 invited/plenary talks at prestigious international conferences. His research interests cover the wide field of nonlinear interactions in optical fibers, with particular focus on distributed optical fiber sensing. Dr. González-Herráez has received several important recognitions to his research career, including the European Research Council Starting Grant, the "Miguel Catalan" prize for young scientists given by the Comunidad de Madrid and the “Agustin de Betancourt” prize of the Spanish Royal Academy of Engineering.

Dr. Pedro Alberto da Silva Jorge (INESC, Portugal) Brief CV

Pedro Alberto da Silva Jorge graduated in Applied Physics (Optics and Lasers) at the Univ. of Minho (1996), MSc in Optoelectronics and Lasers at the Physics Depart. of Univ. of Porto (2000); in 2006 concluded his PhD program at Porto Univ. in collaboration with the Depart. of Physics and Optical Sciences at the Univ. of Charlotte, North Carolina, USA, with work in luminescence based optical fibre systems for biochemical sensing applications. Since 1997 Pedro Jorge has been involved in several research and technology transfer projects related to optical fibre sensing technology, developing new sensing configurations and interrogation techniques for optical sensors. Pedro Jorge is a Senior researcher at INESC TEC where he leads the Biochemical Sensors team exploring the potential of optical fibre and integrated optics technologies in environmental and medical applications coordinating several projects. He has more than 200 publications in the fields of sensors in national and international conferences and peer reviewed journals, is author of 3 book chapters and also holds one patent. Pedro Jorge is a member of SPIE and SPOF.

Dr. Katerina Krebber (BAM Federal Inst. for Materials Research and Testing, Germany) Brief CV

Dr. Katerina Krebber studied physics and received the PhD degree in electrical engineering. She has 20 years experiences with the development of fibre optic sensors including distributed fibre optic sensors, FBG sensors and polymer optical fibre sensors. Since 2004 she has been with BAM. At BAM she is head of the Division Fibre Optic Sensors and leader of a number of RTD projects. She is an author and a co-author of more than 200 scientific publications including invited and keynote lectures at international conferences and patents. /td>

Prof. Manuel López-Amo (Universidad Publica de Navarra, Spain) Brief CV

Head of the Optical Communications Group of Universidad Publica de Navarra (Spain). He has published more than 300 works in international refereed journals and conferences related with fiber-optic sensors, fiber-optic networks, fiber lasers and integrated optics. Member of 26 international and 15 national scientific conferences technical committees such as Optical Fiber Sensors Conference, OFS (2017), European Workshop on fibre optic sensors (2016) and Asia-Pacific optical sensors conference (2016). He was the technical co-chair of OFS23. He is a Senior member of IEEE and member of the OSA.
More about on:
http://www1.unavarra.es/optical-communications-group

Prof. Jürgen Popp (Friedrich-Schiller Univ. Jena, Germany) Brief CV

Prof. Popp studied chemistry at the universities of Erlangen and Wuerzburg, Germany. After his PhD in Physical Chemistry, he joined Yale University for postdoctoral work. He subsequently returned to Wuerzburg University where he finished his habilitation in 2002. Since 2002, he holds a chair for Physical Chemistry at the Friedrich-Schiller University Jena. Furthermore, he is the Scientific Director of the Leibniz Institute of Photonic Technology, Jena, since 2006. His core research focus is biophotonics, i.e. the development and application of frequency-, time- and spatially resolved innovative laser microspectroscopical methods and techniques for biomedical diagnostics as well as environmental and food analysis. Corner stones are the development and application of linear and non-linear Raman-technologies with particular focus on clinical diagnosis. In this context, Raman methods are utilized and developed according to the needs of pathology, oncology, and infection/ sepsis. He has published more than 630 journal papers and has been named as an inventor on 12 patents in the field of spectroscopic instrumentation. He is founding editor and Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Biophotonics. In 2012, he received an honorary doctoral degree from Babeş-Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca, Romania. Professor Jürgen Popp is the recipient of the 2013 Robert Kellner Lecture Award and the prestigious 2016 Pittsburgh Spectroscopy Award. In 2016 he was elected to the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) College of Fellows

Dr. Marcelo Soto (Swiss Federal Inst. of Tech., Switzerland) Brief CV

He received his M.Sc. degree in Electronic Engineering (major in Telecommunications) from Universidad Tecnica Federico Santa Maria, Valparaiso, Chile (2005); and his Ph.D. degree in Telecommunications from Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, Pisa, Italy (2011). He is currently a Postdoctoral Researcher in the group for Fibre Optics at EPFL. His research interests include distributed optical fibre sensing, Brillouin-based systems, optical signal processing and nonlinear fibre optics. He is author and co-author of about 120 scientific publications, 1 book chapter and 8 patents.

Prof. Tong Sun (City Univ., UK) Brief CV

Tong Sun is Professor of Sensor Engineering and Director of Research Centre of Photonics and Instrumentation at City University of London in the UK. Key areas of her research, as reflected in her ~300 peer-reviewed international journal and conference publications, include innovative designs of a range of optical fibre sensors for physical, chemical and biological measurements, addressing challenges arising from the built environment, energy sector and transportation. Her breadth of research includes the development of a suite of optical fibre sensors and sensor networks for i) structural condition monitoring, ranging from concrete bridges, limestone buildings, through marine propellers, to railway current-collecting pantograph and electric motors for more-electric-aircraft; ii) environmental monitoring, from a sewer system, through automotive emission, soil contamination to nuclear waste condition monitoring; iii) enhanced safety and security through detection of drug/explosives, 'smell of fear' and early fires.

Prof. Moshe Tur (Tel Aviv Univ., Israel) Brief CV

Prof. Tur is the head of the fiber-optic sensing and communication laboratory. He authored or co-authored more than 400 journal and conference technical papers with recent emphasis on Structural Health Monitoring, using discrete and distributed dynamic sensing techniques (fiber Bragg gratings and the Brillouin and Rayleigh effects). See also: www.eng.tau.ac.il/~tur

Prof. Waclaw Urbanczyk (Wroclaw Univ. of Tech., Poland) Brief CV

Waclaw Urbanczyk obtained his PhD in physics from Wroclaw University of Science Technology (WRUT), Poland in 1984. He is currently a head of the Department of Optics and Photonics at WRUT. His research interests are in modeling and characterization of specialty fibers, development of fiber-optic sensors and interferometric measurements. He published over 130 journal papers and holds 4 patents.

Prof. David Webb (Aston Univ., UK) Brief CV

Prof. David Webb was appointed Reader in the Photonics Research Group at Aston University in April 2001 and promoted to Professor of Photonics in 2012. Before then he was for 10 years at the University of Kent and has also worked at Oxford University and for GEC Research. He holds degrees from the universities of Oxford (BA in Physics, 1983) and Kent (PhD in Physics, 1989). His main interests cover optical fibre sensing using in-fibre Bragg gratings and fibre interferometers and he has also published work on stimulated Brillouin scattering and photorefractive non-linear optics. Current research involves medical and biochemical applications of optical sensing technology and the development of polymer optical fibre based grating devices. He has published around 400 journal and conference papers on these subjects. From 2010 to 2013 he served as Head of Electrical, Electronic and Power Engineering at Aston and is currently Deputy Director of the Aston Institute of Photonic Technologies and Associate Dean for Research of the School of Engineering and Applied Science. He is also a founding director of Astasense Ltd, created in 2007 to exploit the photonics device expertise at Aston.

Prof. Avinoam Zadok (Bar-Ilan Univ., Israel) Brief CV

Avi Zadok received his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Tel-Aviv University, Israel in 2008. In 2007-2009 he was a post-doctoral research fellow with the Department of Applied Physics of the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). He joined the Faculty of Engineering of Bar-Ilan University in Ramat-Gan, Israel in 2009, and was appointed an Associate Professor in 2013. Dr. Zadok's research interests are in fiber-optic sensors, microwave photonics, all-optical signal processing, and photonic devices in silicon and chalcogenide glass. He is a co-author of 120 papers in scientific journals and proceedings of international conferences, and serves in the technical program committees of several conferences in electro-optics. Dr. Zadok received the Krill Award of the Wolf Foundation in 2013, and a Starter Grant from the European Research Council (ERC) in 2015. He is a member of the Israel Young Academy of Science.

International Honorary Committee

Dr. Thomas Bosselmann (Siemens AG, Germany) Brief CV

Dr. Thomas Bosselmann studied physics and electrical engineering. He has been active the field of optical sensing for more than 30 years. He is with the Siemens Corporate Technology as a project manager for the fiber optics group. His work is focusing on sensing in all areas of the energy sector as power transmission, fossile power generation, renewables and fuel cells. He was a TPC member of the OFS and EWOFS conferences and is currently a HC member of the OFS. He has filed more than 150 patents and authored, coauthored more than 100 papers.

Dr. Richard Claus (NanoSonic Inc., USA) Brief CV

Richard Claus received degrees from the Johns Hopkins University. For more than 30 years, he served on the engineering faculty at Virginia Tech where he taught electrical engineering and materials science, founded and directed the Fiber & Electro-Optics Research Center, and most recently held the Lewis A. Hester Chair of Engineering. Claus left Virginia Tech in January 2007 to work full-time at NanoSonic, a small spinoff from the Virginia Tech Colleges of Science and Engineering. He has received the ASME/AIAA Adaptive Structures Prize for work on actively controlled aircraft wings, the ASCE Normal Medal for work in active structural control, the IEEE Centennial Medal, and an SPIE Lifetime Achievement Award. He co-founded and served as co-Editor-in-Chief of the Institute of Physics journal Smart Materials and Structures from 1993 to 2007. Claus has published more than 1,000 related journal and conference papers, and 30 issued patents.

Prof. Brian Culshaw (Univ. of Strathclyde, UK) Brief CV

Brian Culshaw is professor emeritus at Strathclyde University, where he served as head of department and vice dean, after joining in 1983 as Professor of Optoelectronics. He is also a director of OptoSci limited, a spin out company established in 1994. He has (too) many years’ experience in the technology, realisation and application of fibre optic sensors in navigation, structural monitoring, biomedicine and environmental assessment. He has also participated in conference organisation and professional society activities including as 2007 President of SPIE. He has previously worked at University College London, Bell Northern Research Ottawa, and Stanford and Cornell Universities.

Prof. John Philip Dakin (Univ. of Southampton, UK) Brief CV

Author of several books, over 180 papers and 120 patents. Inventor of :- 1. 1. sphere-lens connector 2. Raman distributed temperature sensor, 3. The 1st interferometric hydrophone array 4. Distributed seismic sensor, plus many gas sensors. He was previously a visiting professor at Strathclyde University (UK) and was the technical programme committee chairman of the major OFS '89 Conference in Paris. He is frequently an invited speaker and chair at major international conferences.

Dr. Anthony Dandridge (Naval Research Laboratory, USA) Brief CV

Head of the Optical Techniques Branch at NRL. His reaseach work covers interferometric fiber sensor systems including acoustic, acceleration and electro-magnatic field sensing as well as the properties of optical sources, multiplexing and interrogation techniques. He has authored and co-authored over 400 technical publications.

Dr. Gordon W. Day (IEEE, USA)

Prof. Wolfgang Ecke (IPHT Jena, Germany) Brief CV

After graduating as diploma physicist and Dr. rer. nat., he joined IPHT in Jena, Germany, where he has conducted research in optical fibre sensors since 1986. He was technical co-chair of OFS-17 and OFS-20, he is chairing annual SPIE Smart Sensors conferences (Fellow of SPIE 2011), and he is teaching fibre optics at Jena University of Applied Sciences.

Dr. Pierre Ferdinand (CEA List, France)

Dr. Thomas Giallorenzi (NRL, USA) Brief CV

Senior Scientist, NRL and Science Advisor, OSA
At OSA, assists in planning meetings and scientific initiatives while at NRL, currently developing sensors for the Department of Navy. Member National Academy of Engineering, fellow of IEEE and OSA. Early developer of numerous fiber sensors and managed several fiber sensor programs.

Prof. Masamitsu Haruna (Osaka Univ., Japan)

Prof. Kazuo Hotate (The Univ. of Tokyo, Japan) Brief CV

Kazuo Hotate received the B.E., M.E., and Dr. Eng. degrees in electronics from the University of Tokyo, in 1974, 1976, and 1979, respectively. In 1979, he joined the University of Tokyo as Lecturer. He became Professor in 1993 at Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology, and currently is Professor at Department of Electrical Engineering and Information Systems, Graduate School & Faculty of Engineering, the University of Tokyo. He served as Dean of Graduate School & Faculty of Engineering (2008–2010), and also served as Director General of Division of University Corporate Relations (2011–2014), in the University of Tokyo. He is now Executive Vice President of the University of Tokyo. He has been engaged in projection-type holography, measurement and analysis of optical fiber characteristics, photonic sensing, and optical fiber sensors. He has authored and coauthored several books on optical fibers, and more than 450 journal papers and international conference presentations. Prof. Hotate is Fellow of IEEE, Institute of Electronics, Information, and Communication Engineers (IEICE), Society of Instrumentation and Control Engineers (SICE), and Japan Society of Applied Physics (JSAP). He received academic awards, including OFS Life-time Achievement Award, SPIE DSS Life-time Achievement Award, Ichimura Prize, IEICE Achievement Award, SICE Hasunuma Prize, and JSAP Takuma Prize. He was a Board of Governors member of IEEE Photonics Society, and served as a Associate Editor of IEEE/OSA Journal of Lightwave Technologies. He served as Co-chairs for SPIE Fiber Optic Gyros: Twentieth Anniversary Conference, Technical Program Committee Chair for 13th International Conference on Optical Fiber Sensors (OFS-13, 1999, Kyongju, Korea), and General Chair for OFS-16 (2003, Nara, Japan). He is currently a member of Science Council of Japan.

Prof. David Jackson (Univ. of Kent, UK) Brief CV

Retired Head of the Applied Optics
Group at the University of Kent. Published more than 300 papers on optical sensors. Currently interested in developing sensors for problems associated with aircraft and wind turbines.

Prof. Leszek R. Jaroszewicz (Military Univ. of Tech., Warsaw, Poland) Brief CV

Prof. Leszek R. Jaroszewicz, PhD, DSc, Eng, SPIE Fellow is director of the Institute of Applied Physics Military University of Technology as well as Editor -in-Chief of the Opto-Electronics Review journal (IF=1.611). Since 1984 he has been engaged in the research of fibre-optic coherent transmission, FOGs and interferometric and polarimetric optical fibre sensors including wide scope of the fibre optic Sagnac interferometer’s applications as a sensor of a variety of physical fields. At present the main field of his interest is photonics technology application for sensors devices including: hybrid liquid crystal waveguide transducers, new technologies of monocrystals and glasses manufacturing especially the oxide type, technologies of advanced fibre optics and photonic crystal fibre elements as well as fibre-optic rotational seismograph R&D.

Dr. Alan D. Kersey (CiDRA, USA) Brief CV

Dr. Alan Kersey has over 30 years of experience in the development and product commercialization of fiber optic sensors & instrumentation for the Military, Oil & Gas, Industrial, Infrastructure and Biotech applications & markets. In 1997, Alan was the founding CTO with CiDRA, which focused on industrial process applications of Bragg grating sensors. In 2003, he became CEO at CyVera Corp, which was a biotechnology-focused spin-out from CiDRA. Following the acquisition of CyVera by Illumina in 2005, Alan served as Vice President and General Manager with Illumina through 2010. In 2011 Alan rejoined CiDRA to drive the company's growth through targeted acquisition of new technologies, products & services. He is currently an independent consultant and sits on several company and technical advisory boards. Alan received his BS degree in Physics and Electronics from the University of Warwick and his PhD in Optical Spectroscopy from the University of Leeds in the UK. He is a Fellow of the Optical Society of America.

Prof. Ralf Th. Kersten (neuroConn GmbH, Germany) Brief CV

Born in Halle/Saale, Germany, educated in physics in Munich, Germany, and Innsbruck, Austria. R&D work at Siemens on fiber communications, professor at Technical University Berlin in integrated Optics, head of fiber sensor group at Fraunhofer Gesellschaft Freiburg, then CTO at Jenoptik GmbH. Consultant and CEO of neuroConn GmbH.

Prof. Byoung Yoon Kim (KAIST, Korea) Brief CV

Dr. Hervé Lefèvre (iXBlue, France) Brief CV

Hervé Lefèvre graduated from the Ecole Normale Supérieure de Saint-Cloud in Physics and was awarded a Doctorate in Optics-Photonics from the University of Paris-Orsay (France) in 1979. His doctorate research was performed at Thales (formerly Thomson-CSF) Central Research Laboratory and his thesis subject was pioneering work on fiber-optic gyroscopes.

From 1980 to 1982, he was a post-doctoral research associate at Stanford University in California, continuing R&D on fiber-optic gyroscopes. In 1982, he came back to Thales Central Research Lab and became head of the fiber-optic sensor team. In 1987, he joined Photonetics, then a start-up, and became director of R&D. In addition to fiber-optic sensors and gyroscopes, the company developed a very successful line of test instruments for optical fiber communications. As the company grew, he moved to the position of Chief Operating Officer in 1999. At the end of 2000, Photonetics was acquired by the Danish group Nettest while its fiber-gyro activity was spun out to create iXSea. HervÃ© remained in Nettest and managed its Photonics Division.

In 2004, he moved to iXCore, the parent company of iXSea, as vice president for R&D with a specific involvement in iXSea's activity, and became Chief Scientific Officer of iXBlue at its creation in 2010. Hervéwas also president of the European Optical Society for the 2010-2012 period

Prof. Yanbiao Liao (Tsinghua Univ., China) Brief CV

YANBIAO LIAO received BS from PHYSICS DEPT. OF WUHAN UNIVERSITY in China. He is a professor of Dept. of Electronic Engineering of Tsinghua University in China. His interests are optical fiber sensors in theory and applications from 1980, such as fiber Bragg grating sensors, fiber interferometer, fiber network and fiber sensors used for measuring seismic waves ,vibration ,displacements, temperature ,pressure ,current , voltage and so on. He is the Chairman of Optical Fiber Sensor Society in China.

Dr. Anna Mignani (CNR IFAC, Italy) Brief CV

Anna Grazia Mignani, a physicist by training, is Senior Scientist at CNR, the National Research Council of Italy, where she works since 1984. Her work started with designing and experimenting fiber optic sensors and networks for temperature and vibration monitoring, then continued with spectroscopy-based sensors for environmental applications, especially for water monitoring. Her most recent activity focuses on spectroscopy for food applications, especially for multi-analysis of safety, quality, and nutraceutic indicators by means of a single light shot and multivariate processing of spectroscopic data. Her work has been presented to plenary and invited talks worldwide and is published in journal papers, book chapters and conference publications. She managed European and national research grants on applied optical sensing, and holds 9 US and EU patents. She has been visiting scientist in laboratories in Belgium and Ireland, and is serving international funding agencies as expert evaluator, project reviewer, and advisor. She co-chaired and promoted several SPIE conferences on optical sensing, and has been a proponent of women in physics at UNESCO. She is Associate Editor of IEEE-Photonics Technology Letters and of IEEE Sensors Journal, and has served the IEEE Sensors Council as member-at-large. She is SPIE Fellow, and is currently serving SPIE on the board of directors.

Prof. David D. Sampson (The Univ. of Western Australia, Australia) Brief CV

Professor David Sampson heads the Optical+Biomedical Engineering Laboratory and is Director of the Centre for Microscopy, Characterisation & Analysis at The University of Western Australia. He directs the Western Australian nodes of the Australian Microscopy & Microanalysis Research Facility and the National Imaging Facility (Australia). He is a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, the OSA – The Optical Society and SPIE – The International Society for Optics and Photonics. Prof. Sampson’s research interests are in the science and applications of light in medicine and biology. His research is focused on the translation of microscopy techniques to imaging in the living body – medical microscopy. He was awarded the IEEE Photonics Society’s Distinguished Lecturer Award in 2013 for the Microscope-in-a-Needle, a deep tissue imaging platform which targets surgical and biopsy guidance, as well as several other prizes, including the 2015 The Australian/Shell Innovation Challenge, for its promise for commercialisation. His other interests are in optical micro-elastography, the micro-scale imaging of tissue stiffness, also undergoing commercialization, and parametric imaging of tissue properties such as optical attenuation, birefringence, and speckle dynamics to detect microvasculature, with a view to creating a suite of optical tools to comprehensively characterise the tissue microenvironment.

Dr. Glen A Sanders (Honeywell International, USA) Brief CV

Glen Sanders is a Sr. Fellow in Honeywell’s Aerospace Advanced Technology Group, and the Chief Systems Engineer of the Strategic Sensors Group of Honeywell Defense and Space located in Phoenix, Arizona. He is an internationally recognized researcher in the area of fiber optic sensors, and served as the Technical Chair of the 18th International Conference on Fiber Optic Sensors. He has served as a member of the Technical Program Committee and International Steering Committee for over 20 years combined. Glen received his Ph.D. in Physics from MIT in 1983 and has worked at Honeywell a total of 27 years. At Honeywell, he led the original high performance fiber optic gyro effort which led to major applications in precision space platform stabilization, submarine navigation, and other precision guidance. Glen was also a founder of the spin-off company, NxtPhase, aimed at commercialization of fiber optic current sensors for the electric power industry. There he was a recipient of the R&D 100 Award, of R&D Magazine, for one of the top new products of 2002. Glen has approximately 75 US patents, and has authored over 40 technical papers. Glen's most recent development activity has been in the advancement of next generation optical-resonator sensors, including resonator fiber optic gyros. This exciting new lightweight, small-sized technology could have a major impact in navigation using band-gap guiding fibers, and has applications in chemical, biological, and radiological sensing.

Prof. Nobuaki Takahashi (National Defense Academy, Japan) Brief CV

Nobuaki Takahashi received the B. Sc. in Engineering from Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan, and M. Sc. and Ph. D. in Engineering from University of California, Irvine, USA. From 1981 to 1983, he was a researcher at Amada Engineering and Service, Inc., USA. In 1983, he joined the National Defense Academy, Japan, where he currently leads as a professor a research group involved in Laser Physics, Optoelectronics, and Optical Fiber Sensors. In 2001, he conducted as a steering chair the International Conference on Optical Engineering for Sensing and Nanotechnology sponsored by Optical Society of Japan and SPIE. From 2011 to 2013, he was a Dean of the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

Prof. Eric Udd (Columbia Gorge Research, USA) Brief CV

Eric Udd is President of Columbia Gorge Research, a company he founded to promote fiber optic sensor technology and it application. Mr. Udd has been strongly involved in the fiber optic sensor field since 1977. He has made fundamental contributions to fiber rotation, acceleration, acoustic, pressure, vibration, strain, temperature, humidity and corrosion sensors. At McDonnell Douglas from 1977 to 1993 he managed over 30 government and commercial programs on fiber optic sensors that resulted in products used on the 777 and other commercial aircraft, launch vehicles and spacecraft. In 1993 Mr. Udd founded Blue Road Research working on civil structures, oil and gas projects, aerospace and defense. Blue Road Research was acquired by Standard MEMS in 2000. In January 2006 he began work full time at his second company, Columbia Gorge Research and found new applications in electric power, robotics, and medical applications as well as aerospace and defense.
Mr. Udd has 54 issued US Patents with additional applications pending. He has written or co-written about 200 technical papers, chaired more than 30 international conferences on fiber sensors, edited textbooks, including Fiber Optic Sensors: An Introduction for Engineers and Scientists, 2nd Edition, Wiley 2011 and Field Guide for Fiber Sensors, SPIE, 2014 and contributed many book chapters. Mr. Udd is a McDonnell Douglas Fellow, an SPIE Fellow and an OSA Fellow. He was awarded the David Richardson Medal by OSA in 2009 for his work on fiber optic sensors and the field of fiber optic smart structures.
Links to resumes of Eric Udd on the web: http://spie.org/profile/Eric.Udd-5824
and https://www.linkedin.com/in/eric-udd-7739a34

Mr. Marc Voet (FBGS International, Belgium)

Prof. Reinhardt Willsch (IPHT Jena, Germany) Brief CV

Leibniz Institute of Photonic Technology (IPHT) Jena, Germany (retired 2014)
Institute of Applied Photonics (IAP) Berlin, Germany (since 2015, chair of board)
PhD in applied physics (NMR) from Friedrich-Schiller University Jena in 1975. Head of IPHT Optical Microsystems/Fiber Sensor Systems dept./research group (1983-2012). Honorary Professor for sensor technology at Ernst-Abbe University of Applied Sciences Jena (since 1998). Scientific consultant at IAP Berlin (since 2015).
Author/co-author of four scientific books and more than 200 journal and conference papers. Member of Optical Fiber Sensors (OFS) International Steering Committee (2000-2014), and of journal boards and conference committees in the field of photonic instrumentation and sensing. OFS-17 (Bruges 2005) Technical Chair and OFS-20 (Edinburgh 2009) Conference Co-chair.
Current research interests: novel optical sensor concepts based on micro/nano-structured fibers and materials for environmental and bio-medical application, distributed acoustic sensing, and other.

Dr. Ryozo Yamauchi (Fujikura Ltd., Japan) Brief CV

Senior Advisor and Fellow of Fujikura, and Fellow of IEICE
He has been engaged in R&D of high performance telecom fibers and specialty fibers for sensing. His recent interest is industrial application of optical fiber sensors.

International Steering Committee

Prof. Wojtek J. Bock (Univ. du Québec en Outaouais, Canada) Brief CV

Dr. Wojtek J. Bock received the M.Sc. degree in Electrical Engineering and the Ph.D. degree in Solid State Physics from the Warsaw University of Technology, Poland, in 1971 and 1980, respectively. Since 1989 he is a full professor of Electrical Engineering at the Université du Québec en Outaouais (UQO), Canada. Since 2003 Dr. Bock is Canada Research Chair Tier-I in Photonic Sensing Technologies and Director of the Photonics Research Center at UQO. He has recently been awarded an SPI-NSERC Senior Industrial Research Chair (for 5 years) in Photonic Sensing Technologies for Safety and Security Monitoring.
His research interests include fiber optic sensors and devices, multisensor systems, and precise measurement systems of non electric quantities. His current research program centers around developing a variety of novel fiber-optic device solutions and sensing techniques with a view to acquiring better performing photonic sensing components, devices and systems for applications in sectors of national importance to Canada. He has authored and co-authored more than 400 scientific papers, patents and conference papers in the fields of fiber optics and metrology which have been cited about 3500 times.
Dr. Bock is a Fellow of IEEE, and was Associated Editor of IEEE/OSA Journal of Lightwave Technology and International Journal of Sensors.  He was also Chairman of the International Optical Fiber Sensor Conference (OFS21) held in Ottawa in May 2011.

Prof. John Canning (The Univ. of Sydney, Australia) Brief CV

Prof. Youngjoo Chung (GIST, South Korea) Brief CV

Dr. Geoffrey A. Cranch (Naval Research Laboratory, USA) Brief CV

Dr Cranch received a BSc in Physics from the University of Bath in 1995 and a PhD in Applied Physics from Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh in 2001. He joined GEC-Marconi in 1996 to develop fiber optic hydrophone systems and moved to the Defense Research and Evaluation Agency in 1997 to continue research in this area.
In 2000 Dr Cranch moved to the Naval Research Laboratory where he currently leads a research group that develops fiber optic and photonic sensing technology and devices for precision measurement. The group's focus extends from basic research into novel sensing concepts through to applied research, prototyping and field trial. Application areas for the sensing technology include underwater surveillance and monitoring, structural health and environmental monitoring and shock wave characterization.
Dr Cranch has published over 70 journal and conference publications with several invited talks. He has also written two book chapters and holds five patents. Dr Cranch is Division Editor (Optical Technology) for Applied Optics and has served as technical editor for the Journal of Sensors ('11-'14). He has served on the technical committee for the Optical Fiber Sensors conference ('07-'15), IEEE Sensors conference('09-'13) and OSA Sensors conference('10-'14). He received the Alan Berman Research publication award in 2015 for the development of fiber optic shock wave diagnostics.

Prof. Wei Jin (The Hong Kong Polytechnic Univ., China) Brief CV

Prof. Julian Jones (Heriot-Watt Univ., UK) Brief CV

Professor Julian D C Jones OBE, FRSE, FInstP, FOSA
Professor Jones studied at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth before becoming a lecturer at the University of Kent at Canterbury. Since 1988, he has been at Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, establishing a research group in optical fibre sensors, optical instrumentation and laser-material interactions. In 2007, he became Deputy Principal for Strategy and Resources, in 2010 Vice-Principal, and additionally in 2013, Deputy Vice-Chancellor. He has over 500 publications.
His interests have spanned the underlying physics and the engineering applications of fibre optics, of which a representative selection includes: monitoring techniques for laser welding; instrumentation for jet engine design experiments; pressure sensors used in experiments for mitigation of terrorist explosions; fluorescence techniques for detection of contamination in surgical instruments; quantitative measurements of wing shape in natural insect flight; and many more.
Julian is a director of OptoSci Ltd. In 2014 he was appointed to the Defence Science Advisory Council and from 2010 to 2014 he was a member of the Scottish Scientific Advisory Council. He is Treasurer of the Institute of Physics, a member of its Council and has chaired the Optics and Photonics Division, the Optical Group, the Institute in Scotland and the Education Committee in Scotland. He was editor of the IOP Journal of Measurement Science and Technology.
Julian is a Fellow of the Institute of Physics, the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the Optical Society of America (elected with the citation ‘… recognised for your world-leading track record in optical fibre sensors, optical instrumentation and laser-material interactions, and outstanding contributions to UK research strategy and planning’. He received an OBE in 2002 for services to science and engineering.

Prof. Hypolito José Kalinowski (Federal Univ. of Tech., Brazil) Brief CV

Hypolito José Kalinowski received a B.Sc. in Physics from Universidade Federal do Paraná (UFPR) and the M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees from Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro (PUC-RIO), Brazil. He retired as Full Professor at the Federal University of Technology - Paraná after occupying permanent positions at Universidade Federal Fluminense (UFF) and PUC-RIO. Prof. Kalinowski took a pos-doc stay at Centro Studi and Laboratori Telecommunicazione (CSELT), Italy, and he spent sabbatical terms at Universidade de Aveiro and Insituto de Telecomunicações, Portugal, as well as at ENEA-C.R. Frascati, Italy. He was also a Senior Fellow of the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics, Trieste, Italy from 2008 to 2013. Prof. Kalinowski received the "Attilio Giarola" Medal of Scientific Achievements from the Brazilian Society for Microwaves and Optoelectronics (SBMO). He is member of SBMO, SPIE and OSA. In 2015 Prof. Kalinowski chaired the organization of OFS-24 (Curitiba, Brazil)

Prof. José Miguel López-Higuera (Univ. of Cantabria, Spain) Brief CV

Prof. López-Higuera is the founder and head of the Photonics Engineering Group of theUniversity of Cantabria, Spain. He is a Member of a wide set of international Committees of Conferences, R&D Institutions, and Companies in the area of photonic sensing. His work is focused on optical sensor systems and instrumentations for any sector application. He has worked in a wide range of R&D&i projects, acting in more than 80 of them as manager.
He has contributed with more than 600 research publications including 17 patents closely related to optical and fiber techniques for sensors and instrumentations. He has worked as an editor and co-author of four R&D international books, as a co-editor of several conference proceedings and Journals and he has been the director of 16 PhD theses. He is co-founder of three technology-based companies.
Prof. López-Higuera is a Fellow of OSA, Fellow of SPIE, Senior of IEEE and is a Member of the Royal Academy of Medicine of Cantabria. He is member of the CIBER-BBN at ISCIII. He is the founder and director of the International School on Light Sciences and Technologies at the “university of universities” the International University Menendez Pelayo in Spain.

Dr. Alexis Mendez (MCH Engineering LLC, USA) Brief CV

Alexis Mendez received a PhD. degree in Electrical Engineering from Brown University, USA in 1992. He is president of MCH Engineering LLC—a consulting firm specializing in optical fiber sensing technology. Dr. Mendez was the former Group Leader of the Fiber Optic Sensors Lab within ABB Corporate Research (USA) where he led R&D activities for the development of fiber sensors for use in industrial plant, oil & gas, and high voltage electric power applications. He has written 65 technical publications, taught multiple short courses on fiber sensing, holds 5 US patents and is recipient of an R&D100 award.
Dr. Mendez is a member of the OFS International Steering Committee, a Fellow of SPIE and was past Chairman of the 2006 International Optical Fiber Sensors Conference (OFS-18), and past Technical Chair of the 2nd Workshop on Specialty Optical Fibers and their Applications (WSOF-2). He is also member of the ISHMII (International Society for Health Monitoring of Intelligent Infrastructure) Committee, as well as VP of the IEEE Fiber Optic Sensors Standards Committee. He is co-editor of the “Specialty Optical Fibers Handbook”, and co-author of SPIE’s “Fiber Optical Sensors Book—Fundamentals & Applications, 4th Ed.”.

Prof. Kentaro Nakamura (Tokyo Inst. of Tech., Japan) Brief CV

Prof. José Luís Santos (Univ. of Porto, Portugal) Brief CV

José Luís Santos received his graduation in Physics from University of Porto, Portugal, and Ph.D. degree from the same University, benefiting from collaboration with the University of Kent at Canterbury, UK.
He is currently a Professor of Physics at the Physics and Astronomy Department of Faculty of Sciences of University of Porto, Portugal.
Optical fiber sensing is the main area of his research, with focus on interferometric and wavelength encoded devices. He is author or co-author of more than 230 scientific articles and co-author of 5 patents.
With Professor Faramarz Farahi of University of North Carolina was Editor of Handbook of Optical Sensors, CRC Press 2014.

Prof. Luc Thévenaz (EPFL Swiss Federal Inst. of Tech., Switzerland) Brief CV

Luc Thévenaz received the M.Sc. degree and the Ph.D. degree in physics from the University of Geneva, Switzerland. In 1988 he joined the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology of Lausanne (EPFL) where he currently leads a research group involved in photonics, namely fibre optics and optical sensing. Research topics include fibre sensors, slow & fast light, nonlinear fibre optics and laser spectroscopy in gases. He achieved with his collaborators the first experimental demonstration of optically-controlled slow & fast light in optical fibres. His expertise covers all applications of stimulated Brillouin scattering in optical fibers and he is known for his innovative concepts related to distributed fiber sensing..
During his career he stayed at Stanford University, at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), at Tel Aviv University, at the University of Sydney and at the Polytechnic University of Valencia. In 2000 he co-founded the company Omnisens that is developing and commercializing advanced photonic instrumentation based on distributed fibre sensing. He is Fellow of the Optical Society of America, Senior Member of the IEEE and Editor in 3 major scientific journals.