2005 Plenary

The CLEO/QELS committees secured the following esteemed speakers for 2005:

Future Prospects for Solid-State Lighting, Shuji Nakamura, Univ. of California, USA
Professor Nakamura will present current research on GaN-based emitting devices and crystal growth. He will explain how a high-quality thick A, M-plain GaN epitaxial growth using a lateral epitaxial overgrowth (LEO) by hydride vapor phase epitaxy (HVPE) was achieved. Attendees will learn about challenges for new device structures such as micro cavity light-emitting diodes (MC-LED), cone-shaped surface LEDs and others.

Shuji Nakamura was born on May 22, 1954 in Ehime, Japan. He obtained B.E., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from the University of Tokushima, Japan in 1977, 1979, and 1994, respectively. He joined Nichia Chemical Industries Ltd. in 1979. In 1988, he spent a year at the University of Florida as a visiting research associate. In 1989, he started the research of blue LEDs using group-III nitride materials. In 1993 and 1995, he developed the first group-III nitride-based blue/green LEDs. He also developed the first group-III nitride-based violet laser diodes (LDs) in 1995. He has received a number of awards, including the Nishina Memorial Award (1996), MRS Medal Award (1997), IEEE Jack A. Morton Award, the British Rank Prize (1998) and Benjamin Franklin Medal Award (2002). Since 2000, he has been a professor in the Materials Department of the University of California at Santa Barbara. He holds more than 100 patents and has published more than 200 scientific papers in this field.

Optical Imaging of Stem Cell Fates and Function, Christopher Contag, Stanford Univ., USA
Stem cells face the dilemma of needing to self renew or differentiate. We are using optical imaging tools to reveal the factors that control the steps in this "decision" for hematopoietic stem cells.

Dr. Contag is Assistant Professor of Pediatrics in the division of Neonatal and Developmental Medicine. He has courtesy appointments in the Departments of Radiology and Microbiology & Immunology, and is the director of Stanford's Center for Innovation in In Vivo Imaging (SCI 3 ) and co-director of the Molecular Imaging Program at Stanford (MIPS). Dr. Contag received his B.S. from the University of Minnesota, St. Paul in 1982; and earned his Ph.D. in Microbiology from the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis in 1988. He was a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University from 1990-1994, and joined the faculty in Pediatrics at Stanford in 1995. He also has courtesy appointments in the Departments of Microbiology & Immunology and Radiology at Stanford. Dr. Contag pioneered the use of biological indicators for in vivo bioluminescence imaging (BLI), has developed novel bioluminescent reporters, and has been involved in the optimization of the hardware and software of the detection systems for in vivo monitoring of bioluminescent reporters. His laboratory works on whole animal imaging studies of immune cell migration and experimental therapies that seek to combine approaches and optimize the bodies own defenses against biological insults. His interests are in complex biological process and the means of understanding networks of regulatory pathways that control these process, his laboratory seeks to understand signals and cell sensing mechanisms that drive stem cell differentiation and migration within the body. Dr. Contag is a pioneer in the emerging field of in vivo cellular and molecular imaging and is developing novel imaging strategies aimed at revealing the molecular basis of disease and identifying targets for novel therapeutic approaches. He is a founding member of the Society for Molecular Imaging and currently the recent past president of this society.

Fermionic Condensates, Deborah Jin, Univ. of Colorado, USA
By tuning interparticle interactions, we create condensates in an ultracold Fermi gas of atoms. These fermionic condensates involve correlated pairs of atoms, which are related to Cooper pairs of electrons in superconductors.

Debobah Jin graduated from Princeton University in 1990. In 1995 she received a Ph. D. from the University of Chicago, where she worked on experimental studies of exotic low temperature superconductors. From 1995 to 1997 she was a National Research Council research associate with NIST, working at JILA in Boulder, Colorado. At JILA Deborah worked with Dr. Eric Cornell and Prof. Carl Wieman on some of the first studies of dilute gas Bose-Einstein condensates. In 1997 she accepted a permanent position with NIST and began work on creating and exploring a dilute Fermi gas of atoms. Her group at NIST created the first quantum degenerate Fermi gas in 1999 and reported the first observation of fermionic condensate in 2004. Deborah is also currently a JILA Fellow and an Associate Professor Adjoint at the University of Colorado. Her awards include a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers 2000, NIST's Samuel W. Stratton Award 2001, the Maria-Goeppert Mayer Award 2002, the National Academy of Sciences Award for Initiatives in Research 2002, a MacArthur fellowship 2003, the Arthur S. Flemming Award (Scientific Category) 2003, the Service to America Medal: Science and Environment 2004, and the I.I. Rabi Prize 2005.