Job Title: Research Scientist

Company: Oculus Research, Facebook

Job Description: Develop future virtual reality headset

Current Position: Electronics Engineer at Night Vision and Electronic Sensors Directorate (NVESD)

Modeling and Simulation Division; Modeling and Measurement Services Branch
• Technical lead of advance sensor evaluation facility (ASEF).
• Improved accuracy of standard imaging system measurement procedures (MTF, FOV, 3D Noise, spectral response)
• Developed VIS, NIR, and SWIR systems measurement capabilities
• Developed time constant and integration measurement capabilities
• Derived algorithms for NVLabCap measurement software
Modeling and Simulation Division; Sensor Performance Branch
Work included:
• Furthered NVESD models to include degradation of human performance in the presence of aliasing in sampled imagers
• Analyzed human performance in response color stimuli
• Assessed robustness of iris recognition algorithms through simulated camera degradations

How an Education from the College of Optics and Photonics has helped his career:

I am satisfied with how CREOL has prepared me.  Although my work is far from my dissertation research, the core classes provided me with a very solid foundation for future study.  More than anything, CREOL taught me how to systematically approach research questions, allowing me to find the solution quickly and accurately.

Advice for Graduate students:

My best advice would be to maintain the relationships with the faculty and their fellow students.  Diversify their experience by taking all the lab courses and try to collaborate outside their group whenever possible.  Invite others into their lab and explain their experiments, difficulties, and methods.

Current Position: Regents’ Researcher, Associate Vice President Research, Faculty Integration, Georgia Institute of Technology

Dr. Gisele Bennett is a Regents’ Researcher, an Associate Vice President for Research, Faculty Integration, and a Professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech). She is the Glenn Robinson Chair in Electro-Optics at the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI). She founded the Logistics and Maintenance Applied Research Center (LandMARC), a multi-disciplinary center at the Georgia Tech.  As the former director of the Electro-Optical Systems Laboratory (EOSL), she managed a group of up to 168 researchers, scientists, and students in a diverse applied research environment. EOSL has up to a $50M diverse research portfolio with an operating budget of $4.5 M.
Dr. Bennett is a member of the Army Science Board. She is a Fellow in the Optical Society (OSA) and SPIE (International Society for Optics and Photonics), a Senior Member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE). She holds officer positions in OSA and IEEE and serves in a variety of professional activities involving optical engineering research. She has been a topical and is a feature editor for Applied Optics.  She is one of the first ten fellows chosen for Georgia Tech’s University Leadership program. She has over 130 publications in books or book chapters, refereed journals, technical reports, and workshops.

Job Title: Research Scientist

Company: Oculus Research, Facebook

Job Description: Develop future virtual reality headset

Current Position-Research and Development Optics Technician at Adecco Engineering on site at Google Inc.

My work includes: Custom optical application testing, data acquisition and analysis. Image quality testing. Optical metrology support. Photonics systems/component assembly, calibration and characterization.

Current Position: Experimental Plasma Physicist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

I am conducting experiments using high-intensity lasers. My areas of interest include the generation of novel sources of electrons, x rays, and gamma rays through laser-plasma interaction, Compton scattering, and laser-wakefield acceleration. I am currently leading an effort to develop these sources for applications in high-energy density sciences at LLNL and the Linac Coherent Light source, in addition to doing experiments for the National Ignition Facility.

Job Title: Display Engineer

Job Description: Makes all the touch and display modules for Surface products

Company: Microsoft Surface Team

Richard DeSalvo head of the Microwave Photonics Group at Harris Corporation in Melbourne, FL.   He was one of CREOL’s first Florida native graduate students, and among the first to obtain the PhD in Physics at UCF in 1993. Dr. DeSlavo is a leader in  areas of microwave photonics integration, coherent lightwave communications, and virtual photonics. He continues strong interaction with CREOL, the College of Optics and Photonics as a Graduate Faculty Scholar, and he has lead partnerships with our faculty on major federal contracts. Dr. DeSalvo continues to give our students, both undergraduates and graduates, opportunities for internships at Harris as well as long-term employment. Currently at least nine of our graduates or current students are working in his group.

Frank J. Effenberger is considered a world expert in the field of fiber access networks and passive optical networks. In 2008, he became the chairman of International Telecommunication Union, the United Nations’ specialized agency for information and communication technologies. In 2011, he was named as Huawei Fellow, and, in 2015, he was named as a fellow of both the OSA and the IEEE. He holds 60 U.S. patents. Before joining his current company in 2006, Frank was a systems engineer at Motorola. Prior to that, he served at Quantum Bridge Communications, where he managed the system engineering group. He also held other positions in the fiber optics industry, with Science Application International Corporation, Bell Communications and Discovery Semiconductors. He earned his undergraduate in engineering and engineering physics in 1988 at the Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, N.J., and a master’s degree in optics from the University of Rochester in 1989, ranking first in his class.