The Department of Physics and Optical Science, In Collaboration with the Charlotte Amateur Astronomy Club, is hosting NASA’s Mission Systems Engineer for the James Webb Space telescope Mike Menzel, who will present the keynote talk. Menzel, and other invited speakers, will explain the impact optical science and the James Webb Space Telescope have had on our understanding of our environment, from human biology to the evolution of the universe. He will be joined by faculty from the UNC Charlotte Department of Physics and Optical Sciences Jay Mathews, presenting “Changing the World with Light: Optics and Photonics for the Future” and Susan Trammell, presenting “Light as a Tool to Improve Human Health“.
The event will be held on Saturday, March 23rd from 5:00-7:30PM EST at the McKnight Hall in the Cone University Center. Attendance is free and open to the public, but registration is encouraged.
McKnight Auditorium is located within the Cone University Center which is located at 9025 University Rd, Charlotte, NC 28262.
Doors open at 4:30PM
The closest visitor parking is in the Cone Deck .
Biography
Mike Menzel is the NASA Mission Systems Engineer for the James Webb Space Telescope at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Menzel has held this position since he joined NASA in June of 2004. His involvement with the James Webb Project extends back to 1998 when he became the Chief Systems Engineer for Lockheed Martin’s Pre-Phase A studies for the then Next Generation Space Telescope and later for Lockheed’s Phase A James Webb Space Telescope contract. In 2001, he joined the Northrop Grumman James Webb systems engineering team. https://webb.nasa.gov/content/meetTheTeam/people/menzel.html
Talk Title “Changing the world with light: Optics and photonics for the future. “
Abstract
Optics and photonics have played a crucial role in the development of technology, enabling new devices and functionalities that have changed our daily lives and shaped the world we live in. The internet, especially the long distance lines between continents and countries, only exists because of fiber optics, and this connection between distant lands has led to a globalized economy that has changed how the world does business. Enabled by photonics, computers and smartphones play a large role in both our personal and professional lives, allowing us to communicate instantly with people across the globe and giving us access to unlimited amounts of information. In this talk, I will introduce the field of optics and photonics, which is one of the fastest growing industries in the world. I will review how optics and photonics are used in today’s technology, and I will discuss some of the current research areas and possible future applications.
Biography
Dr. Jay Mathews is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Physics and Optical Science at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. He obtained his BS with double major in Physics and Mathematics from Colorado State University in 2007, and he received his PhD in Physics from Arizona State University in 2011. Following graduation, Dr. Mathews was awarded a fellowship in the National Academy of Sciences Research Associateship Program, where he performed research for the US Army’s Benet Laboratories at Watervliet Arsenal in NY until July 2013. From 2013 until 2023, he was a faculty member in the Department of Physics at the University of Dayton in Ohio, first as Assistant Professor and later as Associate Professor. He joined the faculty at UNCC in August 2023. Dr. Mathews received an Air Force Office of Scientific Research Young Investigator Award in 2016, and he was awarded the 2019 Diversity and Inclusion Advocacy award from Optica (formerly OSA). He is the faculty adviser for the UNCC chapters of Society of Physics Students and Sigma Pi Sigma. His research is in studying the optical properties of semiconductor materials and fabrication of photonic devices.
Talk Title: “Light as a Tool to Improve Human Health“
Biography
Susan Trammell is a Professor in the Department of Physics and Optical Science at UNC Charlotte. Dr. Trammell received her undergraduate degree in Physics with Highest Honors from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and her PhD in Astronomy/Astrophysics from the University of Texas at Austin. After completing her graduate work, she was awarded a Grainger Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in the Department of Physics at the University of Chicago. Most recently, Dr. Trammell has applied her expertise in spectroscopy and imaging to the field of biomedical imaging. Her research group is developing an intraoperative imaging modality, enhanced thermal imaging, for cancer margin delineation and monitoring blood perfusion during and after microsurgery. Her group has also developed an optical technique, light-assisted drying, to create amorphous trehalose matrices for the preservation of temperature sensitive biologics such as vaccines and nucleic acid nanoparticles.
