Author: <span>Jędrzej Mijas</span>

SPIE Scholarship for Natalia!

Natalia Kuk, our Vice-President for 2019, received a scientific scholarship from SPIE! In this year’s edition, 78 people from around the world were distinguished, and Natalia was the only person from Poland. Almost every year KNOFians receive such scholarships. We are glad that Natalia upholds this tradition and wish her all…

KNOF Annual Meeting 2020

On 8th January all our members gathered for the KNOF Annual Meeting – a time to reflect on the previous year and choose a new Board for the upcoming year. 2019 Board was stepping down and summarized the previous year, highlighting the most important achievements, like the EPS Leadership Meeting…

Career Paths in Photonics and Securing Research Funding

On 27th November we were hosting meeting with Gabrielle M Thomas, a winner of the very prestigious Marie-Sklodowska Curie Actions (MSCA) Individual Fellowship (IF), 2019 Ambassador of the Optical Society and now an innovation manager at M Squared. She shared her personal journey and experience of selecting a career path as well as some tips and resources useful for our own careers. Some of the most valuable things we’ve learned are ways of being more active in specific field of interest and building our own network.  During workshop our guest guided us through the process of writing grant proposals and securing funding. She provided us with elaborately detailed requirements and pointers to pay attention to while writing for grants and scholarships. What was extremely interesting to understand and discuss was her very own MSCA IF proposal.  Thank you all for great meeting!

miniModes Photonics School 2019

Second November weekend was the time for the first edition of a new event in KNOF calendar – the miniModes Photonics School. Three days filled with lectures, workshops, presentations and discussions. Fives speakers from different UW units. Poster session, showcasing students’ work in optics-related research groups. Quizzes, brainstorimg sessions and…

Frontiers in Optics 2019

A memorable event from last September was the Frontiers in Optics 2019 conference in Washington DC, USA. 100 sessions, 800 presentations and 1300 participants – including three people from our Association! Besides meeting famous scientists – like Nobel Prize winner Donna Strickland – and top industry leaders, we met our…

OPTO 2019 Toruń

During last summer break we stormed as usual the OPTO conference – meeting of optics-photonics student chapters from the whole Poland. This time we visited Toruń, where our hosts from Nicolaus Copernicus University prepared a pletora of lectures, workshops and other attractions. Each of our Associates presented their research. Social meetings after the officla parts brought an additional effect – the boards of student chapters decided that the OPTO 2022 will be hosted at our University!

Thank you for warm reception in Toruń and see you next year!

Visit of EPS YM Action Committee

On 11th and 12th October 2019 we hosted at our Faculty of Physics the meeting of EPS Young Minds Action Committee, one of the regular meetings in cities, where Young Minds Sections are based.

During the meeting beside the talks we presented the KNOF activities to the Committee. Thank you for the nice visit!

Science with WOW! – meeting with Tomasz Rożek

The star of our first meeting in 2019/2020 was doctor Tomasz Rożek – one of the most popular science communicators in Poland. Aside from his PhD in Physics, he also has degree in Journalism, both at University of Silesia in Katowice. He wrote several popular science books and articles. He also creates TV show Sonda2 and webpage naukatolubie.pl. At the meeting he answered the questions about science popularization. Science, as beautiful as it is, still needs strong PR sector to inspire interests in people.

NzN grant for KNOF!

Latest great grant success of KNOF! Our project “Polish Photonics Leaders”, prepared by the team of 8 KNOF students, was recommended for funding within the “Najlepsi z Najlepszych 4.0” (“The Best from the best”) programme of Polish Ministry of Science. Our Associates will be representing Univ. of Warsaw on international…