Greetings Friends of CREOL:

Welcome to e/Highlights, published monthly by the The College of Optics and Photonics: CREOL & FPCE.  Happy Holidays to our friends and collegues. In this final issue of the year we feature faculty awards and honors and a visit from middle schoolers.

KAR JOINS LIA BOARD OF DIRECTORS 

• Congratulations to Aravinda Kar who has been elected to the Board of Directors of the Laser Institute of America (LIA) starting in 2006.  For conferences, meeting and more information on LIA please visit http://www.laserinstitute.org/

LI NAMED FELLOW OF OPTICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA 

• Congratulations to Guifang Li for his election to Fellow of the Optical Society of America. He is being honored for "seminal contributions to all-optical clock recovery, all-optical regeneration, advanced modulation formats for optical transmission and RF photonics".

PHYSICAL SOCIETY

• Peter Delfyett has volunteered to serve as the District Advocate for the American Physical Society (APS). He serves as an Advocate in FL's 24th district (Rep. Tom Feeney).  Kimberly Regan, the new science policy fellow at APS writes, "The goal of the new program is to build a volunteer network of district and state advocates within the physics community to facilitate the Society's grassroots activities." For more information please visit www.aps.org

• The College's student organization, CREOL Association of Optics Students (CAOS) continues to provide outreach to local High Schools and Middle Schools.  On November 29th, CAOS hosted and provided demonstrations of basic optical principles for 90 plus Orange County Public School student and teachers. For tours and information please email us at info@creol.ucf.edu

• Photonics West Exhibit.  Visit the Florida Photonics Cluster and its partners, University of Central Florida College of Optics and Photonics, Florida High-Tech Corridor, Metro Orlando EDC, Enterprise Florida, Progress Energy, and the Pinellas County EDC on the 1600 isle at the San Jose Convention Center for the 2006 show. Nearly 19 Florida companies will exhibit at Photonics West. 
• Photonics West Alumni Reunion. Wednesday, January 25, 2006 6:00 - 7:30 pm Drink and Refreshments provided.  Location: Gordon Biersch Brewery, 33 E San Fernando St, San Jose, 95113.  Friends and Alumni are welcome to attend.

• Defense and Security Symposium. For the first time, the Florida Photonics Cluster has organized a Florida Isle at the 2006 SPIE Defense and Security Symposium (DSS).  DSS is the largest non-classified conference for defense contractors.

• Industrial Affiliates Day.  You can watch for updates at: http://www.creol.ucf.edu/people/affiliates/
• Spring Thing Annual Picnic @ MJ Soileau's (April 22nd).  Look for Details in future issues of e/Highlights.

• SPIE Astronomical Telescopes and Instrumentation Meeting. The College of Optics and Photonics is a cooperating organization and will provide tours for attendees. Click here to visit SPIE.