V. Lakshminarayanan (Ph.D., University of California at Berkeley) is currently a professor of vision science, physics and electrical and computer engineering at the University of Waterloo. He has held visiting and faculty appointments at the Universities of California at Berkeley, at Irvine, University of Missouri and the University of Michigan. He has had numerous honors, including Fellow of OSA, SPIE, AAAS, APS, IoP, etc. and the recipient of many awards including most recently the Esther Hoffman Beller medal of OSA, and the Optics Educator award of SPIE. He has been a KITP Scholar at the Kavli Institute of Theoretical Physics at the University of California at Santa Barbara. He was a AAAS science and technology policy fellow finalist and serves on the optics advisory board of the Abdus Salam International Center for Theoretical Physics in Trieste, Italy. Research interests range from optics to neuroscience, bioengineering, applied math and ophthalmology/optometry. Ms. Indrani Bhattacharya obtained her B.Sc (Honours) in Physics and M.Sc (Tech) in Applied Physics (with Specialization in Optics and Opto-Eletronics) degrees in 1984 and 1988, respectively, from Serampore College and the Department of Applied Physics, University of Calcutta. After obtaining her Maters degree, she joined in M/s. Hindustan Cables Limited, HCL, A Govt. of India Undertaking as Fibre Optic System Development Engineer in Company’s Fibre Optics Project, Naini, Allahabad and worked there for two years. During those days, she was actively involved in the development of Fused Fibre Optics Taper Biconical Couplers, Optical Fibre Joint Boxes including manufacturing and testing of slotted core, loose tube fibre optics cables supplied to Department of Telecommunications, DOT, Govt. of India. In the year 1992, she joined HCL, Corporate Office at Kolkata and actively involved as the Core Group Member for the Computerization of the Company. Ms. Bhattacharya was trainedin UNIX, SYBASE, ORACLE with Developer 2000 required in the computerization process.After serving 19 years 6 months in HCL, she planned to join academics and accordingly, she left HCL on 31st March 2010 and enrolled in Ph.D (Tech) program as a part-time research scholar in the Department of Applied Optics and Photonics, Calcutta University, under the guidance of Emeritus Professor Lakshminarayan Hazra. She had joined as Head of the Department, Electronics and Communication Engineering, Camellia College of Engineering and Technology, Burdwan and taught there for two years. On 16th July, 2012, she joined Institute of Engineering and Management, IEM, Salt Lake, Kolkata as Assistant Professor (Sr. Grade) where she is working till date. In IEM, she has motivated students to be involved in research and development activities and opened SPIE and OSA approved IEM Student Chapters, Brahmatejas and Alokadhyaya. Prof. Bhattacharya is the core group member of the Research Council of IEM for promoting research and development activities among the faculty members and students of the Institute.Prof. Bhattacharya is also the Co-coordinator of the Department of Science and Technology (DST), Govt. of India, sponsored INSPIRE (INnovation in Science Pursuit for Inspired Research) Science Camp organized in IEM, “The Enchanting World of Science”, to motivate the top 1% board students to be involved in research and development activities in Science. Prof. Bhattacharya has published seven research works in scientific journals including Conference publications starting from 2011. Her research areas include Optical Image Processing, Optical Design, Diffractive Optics, Super Resolution, Solar Concentrator Optics, Bio-Photonics and Silicon Photonics.
