Plenary and Perspective talks

Hatice Altug

EPFL, Lausanne (Switzerland)

"Integrated Metasurfaces for Life Science and Biomedical Applications"

Hatice Altug is a world-leading expert in nanophotonics and its application to life sciences and biomedical research with development of biosensing, spectroscopy and bioimaging systems. She received her Ph.D. in Applied Physics from Stanford University (U.S.) in 2007 and her B.S. in Physics from Bilkent University (Turkey) in 2000. As Full Professor at Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL), she is the head of BioNanoPhotonic Systems laboratory and also the director of EPFL’s doctoral school in photonics. Prof. Altug is the recipient of numerous awards including European Physical Society Emmy Noether Distinction, Optical Society of America Adolph Lomb Medal, U.S. Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, IEEE Photonics Society Young Investigator Award and Koc University Science Medal. She received European Commission ERC Consolidator and Proof of Concept Grants, U.S. Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Award, U.S. National Science Foundation CAREER Award, Massachusetts Life Science Center New Investigator Award. She is the elected fellow of Optical Society of America and senior member of SPIE. In 2011, she has been named to Popular Science Magazine’s "Brilliant 10" list.

Andrea Alù
CUNY ASRC, New York (USA) 

"Extreme Control of Light and Sound with Metasurfaces"

Andrea Alù is a Distinguished Professor at the City University of New York (CUNY), the Founding Director of the Photonics Initiative at the CUNY Advanced Science Research Center, and the Einstein Professor of Physics at the CUNY Graduate Center. He received his Laurea (2001) and PhD (2007) from the University of Roma Tre, Italy, and, after a postdoc at the University of Pennsylvania, he joined the faculty of the University of Texas at Austin in 2009, where he was the Temple Foundation Endowed Professor until Jan. 2018. Dr. Alù is a Fellow of NAI, AAAS, IEEE, OSA, MRS, SPIE and APS, and has received several scientific awards, including the Blavatnik National Award in Physical Sciences and Engineering, the IEEE Kiyo Tomiyasu Award, the Vannevar Bush Faculty Fellowship, and the NSF Alan T. Waterman award.

Geoffroy Lerosey
Greenerwave, Paris (France)

"Shaping Microwaves with Tunable Metasurfaces: from Physics to Products"

Geoffroy Lerosey is the co-founder and the inventor of the concepts behind Greenerwave with Mathias Fink. He is on leave from academia to fully support the company’s development and bring his scientific expertise as CEO and CSO. Geoffroy earned an engineering degree from ESPCI Paris, a Master’s degree in electronics from Université Pierre et Marie Curie and a PhD in Physics from Université Paris Diderot. He joined University of California at Berkeley for Postdoctoral research working mainly on metamaterials and plasmonics. Coming back to France, Geoffroy was appointed by French main academic research organization CNRS in 2008 and started a group at Institut Langevin (CNRS & ESPCI Paris). Geoffroy’s research are in metamaterials and metasurfaces, time reversal and signal processing, subwavelength imaging and focusing techniques, wavefront shaping in optics and RF, photonic and phononic crystals, reverberating and locally resonant media, and span many domains of wave physics from acoustics to optics. Geoffroy has been invited more than 100 times at international conferences and has given invited seminars in many universities worldwide. His research led to 120 scientific articles, 25 patents and 2 startups.

Albert Polman
AMOLF, Amsterdam (Netherlands)

"Optical Metasurfaces Saving Energy in Optical Computing and Photovoltaics"

Albert Polman is Scientific Group Leader at AMOLF, one of the research institutes of the Dutch research counsel (NWO) in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, where he heads the Program “Light management in new photovoltaic materials”. He is professor of Photonic Materials for Photovoltaics at the University of Amsterdam. Polman obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Utrecht, was post-doctoral researcher at AT&T Bell Laboratories, after which he became group leader at AMOLF where he also served as director from 2006-2013. He spent a sabbaticals at Caltech (Pasadena, CA, 2003-2004) and the University of New South Wales (Sydney, 2017-2018).
Polman is one of the pioneers of the research field of nanophotonics: the control, understanding, and application of light at the nanoscale. Polman’s research group specializes in fundamental studies at the interface between optical physics and materials science, and has regularly demonstrated transfer of knowledge to applied concepts. Polman is an elected member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) and recipient of three ERC Advanced Investigator Grants (2011, 2016, 2021). He is Fellow of the Materials Research Society (MRS) and the Optical Society of America (OSA), an was awarded the Frew Fellowship of the Australian Academy of Sciences (2017), the EPS Research into the Science of Light Prize (2017), the Physica Prize of the Dutch Physical Society (2014) and the Julius Springer Award for Applied Physics (2014). Polman’s group has published over 340 articles in international journals that are cited over 37.000 times.

Shu Yang
University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia (USA)

"Switching Chirality in Soft Metamaterials"

Shu Yang is a Joseph Bordogna Professor of Engineering and Applied Science, Chair of the Department of Materials Science & Engineering at University of Pennsylvania. Her group is interested in synthesis, fabrication, and assembly of soft matter; dynamic tuning of their sizes, shapes and assembled structures, and use geometry to create highly flexible, super-conformable, and shape changing materials. Yang received her B.S. degree from Fudan University, and Ph. D. degree from Cornell University. She is a Fellow of American Chemical Society (ACS), Materials Research Society (MRS), Division of Soft Matter (DSOFT) from American Physical Society (APS), Division of Polymeric Materials: Science and Engineering from American Chemical Society (ACS), Royal Chemical Society, and National Academy of Inventors.

Nikolay I. Zheludev
University of Southampton, Southampton (UK) and 
Nanyang Technological University, Nanyang (Singapore)

Perspective talk on Time Crystals

Nikolay Zheludev is co-Director of the Photonics Institute at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore and deputy director of the Optoelectronics Research Centre, University of Southampton, UK and. His research interest are in nanophotonics and metamaterials. He is Fellow of the Royal Society (UK Academy of Sciences) and Member of the US National Academy of Engineering.