News

It has been announced that Dr Devaney and Dr Goncharov of the Applied Optics group have been awarded the contract by the European Space Agency (ESA) for €1 million, under the project title "Active Optics Correction Chain for Large Monolithic Mirrors". Funding is through the ESA Technology Research Programme.  Related links: Irish Times Article   NUI Galway Press Release  

The 2nd annual Galway Garden festival will be held on the 9th and 10th of July in Claregalway Castle in aid of Christian Blind Mission Ireland. Related links: Galway Garden Festival  

Excerpt....'Christopher Dainty discusses what lies ahead for the global optics community. The Optical Society of America (OSA) was founded in 1916 with the mission "To promote the generation, application, archiving and worldwide dissemination of knowledge in optics and photonics." Based in Washington, DC, it has a staff of about 130 and an annual operating budget of around $30m (€21m). With more than 16,000 members in 95 countries, including some 220 active student chapters in 48 countries, the OSA serves about 100,000 optics professionals globally. Christopher Dainty is the society's current president; he is also professor of applied physics at the National University of Ireland in Galway. In recent years his research has focused on adaptive optics and other aspects of imaging.' Related links: Read the full article  

The Applied Optics Group in collaboration with IMDA (Irish Medical Device Association) will soon host the "Optics as an Enabling Technology for the Medical Device Sector" conference. This offering to Ireland’s FDI and indigenous medical technology companies will take place here in Galway on February 24th 2010. IMDA anticipates that 50-70 participants from industry will attend, the majority of whom are expected to be engineering/technology managers, R&D managers, senior manufacturing/process engineers, QA engineers etc. The conference program and speaker profiles are available in the links below. Related links: Speaker Profiles and   Program

The Applied Optics Group was visited on 13/02/2009 by Professor Tom Baer, President of the Optical Society of America. Prof. Baer attended a forum in the Applied Optics Group, which included researchers from industy and academia in Ireland, as well as representatives from Enterprise Ireland, Science Foundation Ireland, and the Industrial Development Authority (IDA). The event was deemed a great success, with well-received presentations and lively debate. Related links: Photographs  

The Royal Irish Academy announced in mid-March that Prof. Chris Dainty, the Director of the Applied Optics Group at NUI Galway, has been elected a member of the Academy, in recoginition of his academic achievement and standing. Chris will be admitted formally to the Academy at a meeting in Academy House, in Dublin in mid-May. The Royal Irish Academy ( http://www.ria.ie/ ), founded in 1785, is the principal learned society in Ireland. Related links: The Royal Irish Academy