Annual Summer Symposium celebrates academic excellence at VUB
B-PHOT recently co-hosted the annual Summer Symposium, marking the conclusion of the academic year for the interuniversity Master of Science in Photonics Engineering programme. In collaboration with UGent, this event showcased the remarkable achievements of second-year master's students and their research findings, concluding an intensive two-year academic journey.
Held at VUB and UGent, 20 students successfully defended their master’s theses before an audience of fellow students, professors, researchers and external experts, demonstrating the research and reporting skills they learned in the 24 months leading up to this final highlight.
Best Presentation Award: Halewijn Van den Bossche
A highlight of the event was the recognition of outstanding contributions with awards. Halewijn Van den Bossche, promoted by Prof. Heidi Ottevaere and supervised by Mehdi Feizpour, was honored with the Best Presentation Award. His talk on 'Lab-on-a-Chip for Bacterial Identification combining SERS and Machine Learning' stood out for its clarity and engaging delivery. Halewijn’s ability to distil complex information into digestible insights for the general public convinced the jury.
Arturo Fernandez Gamez received the Best Thesis Award for his exceptional research contributions, which have been widely acclaimed for their depth and impact. His thesis project on 'Silicon Nitride External Cavity Lasers enabled by micro-transfer printing' not only demonstrated depth and impact but also set a high bar for future thesis projects.
Following the thesis presentations, students and professors from VUB and UGent came together to reflect on the year's accomplishments and enjoy a well-deserved celebration, looking back with a sense of accomplishment and making plans for future endeavours.
B-PHOT's Summer Symposium not only highlighted the academic excellence of VUB's photonics master students, but also celebrated a strong photonics community at VUB and UGent, a community committed to fostering the photonics engineers of the next generation.
