Center For Integrated Access Networks Blog

Please welcome Dr. Allison Titcomb to CIAN

Fri, 27 Aug 2010 12:13:00 -0700

I'm excited to learn about all aspects of CIAN's education programs and look forward to being part of the CIAN team. I invite you to contact me with any questions or suggestions.
In my role as education evaluator, I will help the team to measure the learning outcomes of the curriculum, to document the benefits to students of being part of collaborative research, and to gain perspective from industry contacts about what they would like to see in our graduates.
A little about my background: I'm originally from Nogales, Arizona. I've been doing evaluations for many (>25) years and completed my PhD in Educational Psychology in 1996. I have also coordinated science and Honors outreach programs, served as an academic advisor, and taught courses in evaluation, program planning and learning. I volunteer in the Tucson community in animal-assisted therapy and serve on the board of the Arizona Evaluation Network and several "topical interest groups" (TIGs) of the American Evaluation Association (e.g., Organizational Learning & Evaluation Capacity Building, Environmental Program Evaluation). My undergraduate degree was in Ecology & Evolutionary Biology.

Allison
Allison L. Titcomb, Ph.D.
Education Evaluation Specialist
NSF Research Center for Integrated Access Networks
College of Optical Sciences
The University of Arizona
520-626-2522
atitcomb@optics.arizona.edu
www.cian-erc.org

Integrated Optics for Undergraduate (IOU) Award

Mon, 08 Mar 2010 12:46:00 -0700

Dear CIAN Collaborators, Letting you know that the Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) grant we worked on together has been awarded! Just heard from NSF Program Director Esther Bolding; NSF will fund 10 REU students per year for 3 years. This will be supplemented by 2 REU positions from base CIAN funding for a total of 12 per year for 3 years: UA: 4 – Kueppers, Khitrova, Norwood, Seraphin (student services with SROP)
UCSD: 3 – Fainman, Vahdat, Lomakin (student services with STARS)
Berkeley: 1 – Wu (student services with SUPERB)
UCLA: 2 – Huffaker, Jalali (student services with CENS)
Columbia: 2 – Zussman, Bergman (student services with NSEC)
Your work on the proposal made this possible – thanks for your letters of support, research descriptions, advice, and help with the budget (Rick, will be easier next time!). Please plan to hear from me soon regarding IOU student selection; I'm looking forward to our work together. Have a great weekend, Meredith --

Meredith Kupinski, Ph.D.
Director of Education
Engineering Research Center
for Integrated Access Networks
University of Arizona
College of Optical Sciences
520.626.3985
meredith@optics.arizona.edu
www.cian-erc.org

Welcome Dr. John Wissinger

Wed, 13 Jan 2010 18:18:00 -0700

CIAN is pleased to announce the addition of Dr. John W. Wissinger to the Professional Staff of the Center for Integrated Access Networks (CIAN), an NSF Engineering Research Center. As Associate Director for Industry Collaboration, Dr. Wissinger will be responsible for establishing and maintaining collaborative relationships between CIAN Faculty and Student Researchers and Industry. He will help facilitate, in a liaison capacity, the expansion of CIAN's Industry Advisory Board and making relevant industry collaborations with the areas of research and education.

Dr. Wissinger is an accomplished and experienced engineer and manager, with a diverse background in product development and business models. He most recently worked at Veeco Instruments (as VP/GM), a global public company manufacturing process equipment, analytic instrumentation, and metrology tools for nanotechnology applications. Prior to that time, he worked for NP Photonics (VP Engineering), a venture-backed startup engineering micro-fiber optical amplifiers and fiber lasers, and for Alphatech Inc. (Division Manager, Signal & Image Processing), a private company which was acquired as BAE Systems Advanced Information Technology Division, where he developed specialized algorithms and software products. Dr. Wissinger received his Bachelors and Masters degrees in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from Rice University, and his PhD in EECS from MIT.

CSE Members awarded the Gordon Engineering Leadership Fellow

Wed, 09 Dec 2009 19:02:00 -0700

CSE Members awarded the Gordon Engineering Leadership Fellow. Amin Vahdat, Professor in the department of Computer Science and Engineering and CSE undergraduate Sarah Esper, have been awarded the Gordon Engineering Leadership Center's Gordon Fellows. The Gordon Center was established in January 2009 with the mission of educating and training effective engineering leaders who create new products and jobs that benefit society. In order to provide positive role models for students of engineering, the Gordon Center holds an annual awards ceremony to recognize exemplary engineers at the high school, undergraduate, graduate, and professional level. Recipients of the Gordon Fellows Medal not only must be outstanding engineers within their respective fields but must also have a proven record of leadership successes. To learn more about the Gordon Center's mission and goals, please click here.

Stimulus funds help start program to create clean-tech leaders

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 13:55:00 -0700

As the country presses forward in developing green energy and Los Angeles strives to become a hub of clean technology, UCLA Associate Professor Diana Huffaker noticed there was one thing still missing: a program to train the future leaders of environmental industry in L.A.

So she created it -- and, working with about 20 other professors, won support for it: $3 million in stimulus funding via a highly competitive grant from the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Integrative Graduate Education Research Traineeship (IGERT) award.

The Clean Energy for Green Industry Fellowship, designed to develop leaders in environmental energy, could start as soon as the upcoming winter quarter. It will grant Ph.D. students a $33,000 stipend for pursuing coursework in the science, business and policies of clean technology.

"Over the course of the five-year program, we'll graduate 33 Ph.D.s with expertise in energy storage, energy harvesting and energy conservation," Huffaker said. [More]

Clean Green IGERT

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 13:48:00 -0700

The National Science Foundation Integrative Graduate Education Research Traineeship on Clean Energy for Green Industry at UCLA (CGI) is a 3 year fellowship^* that provides a $30,000 stipend/year , tuition, fees, travel stipend to participate in a scientific conference or workshop, internships and international experience. The fellowship will develop leaders in environmental energy through integrated research and coursework in the science, business and policies of clean technology. Completion of a 1-3 month cross-disciplinary internship with an industrial partner or national laboratory is encouraged.

[More]

GigOptix`s 100G Mach Zehnder Modulator Enables 110GHz Time Stretched Analog to Digital Conversions

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 13:16:00 -0700

PALO ALTO, Calif.--(Business Wire)-- GigOptix Inc. (OTCBB:GGOX), a leading provider of electronic engines for the optically connected digital world today announced successful results from collaborative work with Prof. Bahram Jalali`s engineering group at UCLA on using GigOptix`s LX8900 in a novel 110GHz time stretched analog-to-digital conversion (ADC) application.

Ultra-wide-band ADC is one of the most critical problems faced in communication, instrumentation and radar systems. Digital Signal Processing (DSP) has revolutionized modern communication and radar systems by offering unprecedented performance and adaptivity. For broad-band systems, however, the application of DSP is hindered by difficulty in capturing the wide-band signal. The standard approach to deal with this problem is to employ parallelism through the use of the time-interleaved ADC architecture. Here, the signal is captured by a parallel array of slow digitizers. This architecture suffers from mismatches between digitizers that limit the dynamic range and therefore limits the resolution of such sample-interleaved ADC systems. An entirely new ADC architecture called time-stretched ADC overcomes these issues using high speed broadband Mach-Zehnder modulators. Here, the analog signal is slowed down prior to sampling and quantization by an electronic digitizer in the optical domain using the certain non-linearities in the optical fiber. This technique has applications in ultra high frequency communication, instrumentation and radar systems.

"GigOptix`s unique EO polymer modulator technology is enabling a new branch of application in ultra high speed RF photonics," commented UCLA Researcher Ali Motafakker. "Ultra-wide-band ADC is a very challenging problem and our team is very excited about the performance of the LX8900 device and its potential to solve issues in this field. We are looking forward to continuing to drive this technology forward."

"We are very happy to see these excellent results coming back so quickly from our collaboration with UCLA," stated Andrea Betti-Berutto, Chief Technology Officer of GigOptix. "This is a significant moment for GigOptix in that it not only verifies our vision of combining our broadband EO polymer modulator technology with our broadband RF expertise and but also confirms our strategy of collaborating with leading research groups to define new applications for our technologies." LX8900 samples are available immediately. Please contact sales@gigoptix.com for datasheets, samples and pricing.

About GigOptix Inc. GigOptix is a leading fabless manufacturer of electronic engines for the optically connected digital world. The Company offers a broad portfolio of high speed electronic devices including polymer electro-optic modulators, modulator drivers, laser drivers and TIAs for telecom, datacom, Infiniband and consumer optical systems, covering serial and parallel communication technologies from 1G to 100G. For more information,

please visit www.GigOptix.com. Forward-Looking Statements Statements made in this release, other than statements of historical fact, are forward-looking statements, including statements pertaining to defining new applications, solving industry problems and any statement that refers to expectations, projections or other characterizations of future events or circumstances and those which can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "expects," "plans," "may," "should," or "anticipates" and other similar expressions. Forward-looking statements are subject to a number of known and unknown risks, which might cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such statements. These risks and uncertainties include those described in GigOptix's periodic reports filed with the SEC, and in news releases and other communications. GigOptix disclaims any intention or duty to update any forward-looking statements made in this release.

GigOptix Inc. Parker Martineau, 650-424-1937 ext. 102 (Media) Corporate Communications Manager pr@gigoptix.com or Alliance Advisors, LLC Alan Sheinwald, 914-669-0222 (Investors) President asheinwald@allianceadvisors.net Copyright Business Wire 2009

Science Night: A Roaring Success

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 12:57:00 -0700

From Meredith Kupinski. A Science Night for elementary students was organized by OSC Professor Scott Tyo at Robins Elementary School last Friday evening. Eleven exhibitors from UA science departments, local industry, and local science clubs participated to share fun demonstrations of science principles with more than 150 students and their families. OSC would like to thank graduate student Samantha White for making the index of refraction an unforgettable lesson by showing a Pyrex beaker disappear in Wesson cooking oil. OSC undergraduate Devinna Fleming proved lasers are used for more than just pointers by broadcasting her iPod music through a fiber optic. Thanks for sharing your interest in science with young students. Also thanks to Zachary Denny, Jennifer Harwell, and Kali Wilson for assistance with the preparations.

CIAN Faculty supports ARRA

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 12:01:00 -0700

One of the major initiatives within the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) is the Broadband USA program (www.broadbandusa.gov). Approx. $10 billion are made available to improve Americas broadband infrastructure - the middle and last mile (also known as the "aggregation" and "access" network) to families, schools, libraries, hospitals, emergency response units, and many more in order to provide them with state-of-the-art internet access especially in currently unserved and/or underserved areas. Grants are awarded on a competitive basis to project proposals which provide the highest merit with respect to the goals of the program. CIAN faculty actively participated in the review process in order to support fast, efficient, and effective funding of these projects.

CIAN Student Retreat Agenda

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 18:40:00 -0700

CIAN Student Retreat Agenda

Date: Nov. 11-12 , 2009

Location: Hotel Palomar Los Angeles - Westwood, Los Angeles, CA
Address: 10740 Wilshire Boulevard (at Selby Avenue), Los Angeles, CA 90024, Tel: 310.475.8711 or 800.472.8556, Fax: 310.475.5220

Wednesday,11 ,2009
7:00 - 8:00	Continental Breakfast
8:00 - 8:15	Welcome - CIAN's 1st Retreat - Peyghambarian
8:15 - 8:25	Retreat Goals for Faculty, Students, Postdocs - Fainman
8:25 - 8:30	Logistics - Cochran
Working Groups Overview
8:30 - 9:30	WG I - Cross-Layer Optimization - Bergman
9:30 - 10:30	WG II - Scalable and Energy Efficient Data Centers - Vahdat
10:30 - 10:45	Coffee Break
10:45- 11:45	WG III - Integrated Transport Platforms - Kueppers
Thrust I Research
11:45 - 11:55	Thrust I Overview - Willner
11:55 - 12:05	Touch
12:05 - 12:15	Zussman
12:15 - 1:15	Working Lunch: CIAN Web site and data collection - Cochran/Riaz
Thrust II Research
1:15 - 1:25	Thrust II Overview - Scherer/Wu
1:25 - 1:35	Lomakin (Optical Spice)
1:35 - 1:45	Jalali
1:45 - 1:55	Ford
Thrust III Research
1:55 - 2:05	Thrust III Overview - Chang-Hasnain/Gibbs
2:05 - 2:15	Dapkus
2:15 - 2:25	Das
2:25 - 2:35	Huffaker
2:35 - 2:45	Khitrova
Testbeds
2:45 - 2:55	Kueppers, "Overview of Testbeds/ Arizona Satellite Testbed on Integrated Transmission Network"
2:55 - 3:05	Radic, "San Diego Grand Challenge Testbed"
3:05 - 3:15	Papen, "New Data Center Testbed"
3:15 - 3:25	Patra, "Packaging Issues for Testbed Insertion"
3:25 - 4:00	Coffee Break
4:00 - 6:00	3 Working Groups Parallel Sessions
4:00 - 6:00	SLC Meeting: Effective Leadership Practices - Seemiller
CIAN Retreat Working Dinner: Comments by CIAN Management
7:00 - 9:00	Center Dinner at Shaherzad 1422 Westwood Blvd. (at Wilkin Ave), Los Angeles, CA 90024 Tel.: 310-470-9131
Thursday.12.2009
7:00 - 8:00	Continental Breakfast
8:00 - 10:30	3 Working Groups Parallel Sessions Continued
10:30 - 10:45	Coffee Break
10:45 - 12:00	Presentations of the results of 3 WGs to all
12:00 - 1:00	Working Lunch: Supercourse Review and CIAN Education Highlights - Kupinski, Simmons, Mead
CIAN IAB, Management and Education
1:00 - 1:20	Industry Recruitment of System Level Vendors - Norwood
1:20 - 1:30	Technical Program Committee - Fainman
1:30 - 1:50	Student Leadership Council - Sweet / Kupinski
1:50 - 2:00	Newsletter - Sukumar
2:00 - 2:15	RET Video - Wang
2:15 - 2:35	Mentoring REU/RET on a Time Budget - Seraphin
Milestones Metric Review/SLC Meeting
2:35 - 3:30	Identification of Key Tasks, Key Milestones, GAANT chart - Cochran
2:32 - 4:00	Student Research Talks - Kupinski
3:30 - 4:00	Coffee Break
4:00 - 5:00	issues, things to do, wrap up - Fainman and Peyghambarian

CIAN Industry Advisory Board Meeting Agenda

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 18:39:00 -0700

CIAN Industry Advisory Board Meeting Agenda

Date: Nov. 10 2009

Location: Hotel Palomar Los Angeles- Westwood, Los Angeles, CA
Address: 10740 Wilshire Boulevard (at Selby Avenue), Los Angeles, CA 90024, Tel: 310.475.8711 or 800.472.8556, Fax: 310.475.5220

Tuesday,10 ,2009
7:30 - 8:30	Continental Breakfast
8:30 - 8:40	Welcome Remarks - Dr .Nasser Peyghambarian
8:40 - 8:45	Introduction of IAB Member Firms - Dr. Robert Norwood
8:45 - 9:45	Working Group (WG) 1: Cross-layered Optimized Access Network Dr. Keren Bergman - This session will include: (1) vision of the WG and its mission, (2) architecture and systems, (3) technology gaps that need to be filled by Thrusts 2 and 3, (4) testbed insertion examples, (5) industry drive/interaction, and (6) GENI interaction. This session may have industry presenters, students and faculty.
9:45 - 10:45	Working Group (WG) 2: Scalable and Energy Efficient Data Centers Dr. George Papen/Dr. Amin Vahdat - This session will include: (1) vision of the WG and its mission, (2) architecture and systems, (3) technology gaps that need to be filled by Thrusts 2 and 3, (4) testbed insertion examples, (5) industry drive/interaction, and (6) GENI interaction. This session may have industry presenters, students and faculty.
10:45 - 11:15	Coffee Break
11:15 - 12:15	Working Group (WG) 3: Integrated Transport Platforms Dr. Franko Kueppers - This session will include: (1) vision of the WG and its mission, (2) architecture and systems, (3) technology gaps that need to be filled by Thrusts 2 and 3, (4) testbed insertion examples, (5) industry drive/interaction, and (6) GENI interaction. This session may have industry presenters, students and faculty.
12:15 - 1:00	Lunch (students can set up posters)
1:00 - 2:45	Technology: Integrated OE chips/optical spice/devices in support of the WGs Dr. Axel Scherer/Dr. Ming Wu/Dr. Connie Chang-Hasnain - This session will include directions to address needs of WGs, industry talks, student talks and faculty talks.
2:45 - 3:00	Education Program Overview - Dr. Meredith Kupinski
3:00 - 3:45	IAB Closed Meeting (Industry SWOT analysis)
3:45 - 4:15	Refining your "Elevator Pitch" - Students interview with industry representatives
4:15 - 5:00	Refreshment Break/Student Posters

Annual Report and Site Visit Guidelines

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 17:33:00 -0700

View specific questions and answers on topics related to ERCWeb at the ERCWeb Q and A screen. NSF has established formal guidelines for conducting site visits to Engineering Research Centers at various stages during the life of the ERC. These guidelines have evolved over time, as have the protocols and criteria governing the reviews conducted by site visit review teams. The aim of all site visits and reviews is to strengthen each ERC and ensure that it is operating and evolving in a manner consistent with the mission and goals of the ERC Program. The documents provided here are current, and are generally updated annually or as changes occur in NSF policy. The documents give information useful for operating an ERC, about how to prepare an Annual Report/Renewal Proposal and what it should include, about the performance criteria by which the ERCs will be reviewed and about the site visit and how to prepare for one. Please visit https://surveys.qrc.com/ercweb/help/ann_rpt_guide.cfm

Reminder to register for CIAN IAB/Retreat

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 19:29:00 -0700

CIAN Faculty, Staff and Students,

The CIAN Biweekly meeting is canceled for Thursday Oct 1, 2009, due to travel of the Center Director.

In lieu, of the time you would have spent on the call. Please take time to indicate whether you will be attending the CIAN Industry Advisory Board Meeting and the CIAN Retreat by send an RSVP response to Trin (email: trin@optics.arizona.edu ). If you are attending, registration can be accomplished at http://www.cian-erc.org/eventdetails.cfm?Tab=Retreat. If you are not going to attend please let Trin know.

The CIAN preferred hotel rate is only available up to Oct 15. It is the hotel's understanding that individuals will make their own reservations directly with the hotel's reservation department via telephone at 1-800-Kimpton or 424-901-7270. Please inform the hotel you will be attending the IAB and CIAN Retreat function for the special room rate ($120/day).

Please note, that the CIAN Retreat is mandatory for all faculty. Please also bring at least one of your students (forward this email to that student so that he/she will register as well). There is a student poster session scheduled on Nov. 10, 2009 in the afternoon. Indicate who in your group will be presenting a poster and the title of their poster (email: ecochran@optics.arizona.edu).

I am attaching the near final agenda’s for these meetings. Please review these agendas to see what content you are responsible to provided. If you have any questions please call me or the center directors.

PS The next biweekly call will be on Oct 15. Please register by then.

Best Regards,

Eugene R. Cochran, PhD, MBA

Administrative Director, CIAN Engineering Research Center

University of Arizona

The College of Optical Sciences

1630 E. University Blvd., Rm 529

Tucson, AZ 85721

Tel. 520-626-0157

Fax 520-626-6219

Cell 520-977-8126

Email: ecochran@optics.arizona.edu

Working Group III Name Change

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 18:43:00 -0700

Working Group III is now officially named "Integrated Transport Platforms"

Regards,

Eugene Cochran

New CIAN Public Web Site Launched

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 18:42:00 -0700

Exciting New CIAN Public web site has been launched . please visit http://www.cian-erc.org !!