The University of Ottawa established the Schawlow-Townes Symposium on Photonics in 2012, in honour of Charles H. Townes and Arthur L. Schawlow, who pioneered laser technology in the 1950s. This annual symposium aims to bring to light the research and discoveries of photonics experts at the University of Ottawa, from across Canada and from around the world. Since its inception, every MPC board member from Germany has been a featured speaker of this symposium. We also include the more junior researchers from both sides of the Centre as guest speakers. The research projects of the centre are also included in the poster session which initiate discussions between the participants. We have timed the annual MPC meetings held in Ottawa to coincide with this event. Thus, this symposium has helped deepen the links between the researcher of this MPC by integrating them into the discussion and networking involved in this event.

List of speakers – names in bold are MPC-EQP researchers

2012
Charles Townes, University of California at Berkeley
Olga Smirnova, Max Born Institute for Nonlinear Optics and Short Pulse Spectroscopy
Albert Stolow, University of Ottawa
Ksenia Dolgaleva, University of Ottawa
Christoph Marquardt, Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light
Erich Ippen, Massachussets Institute of Technology
Jeff Lundeen, University of Ottawa
Gerd Leuchs, Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light

2013
Philip Russell, Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light
Maurice O’Sullivan, Ciena
Bahaa E. A. Saleh, University of Central Florida
Federico Capasso, Havard University

2014
Marlan Scully, Texas A&M and Princeton
Ian Walmsley, University of Oxford
Thomas Jennewein, University of Waterloo
Eli Yablonovitch, University of California at Berkeley
Miles Padgett, University of Glasgow
Vahid Sandoghdar, Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light

2015
Serge Haroche, Collège de France
Nader Engheta, University of Pennsylvania
Kevin Farley, Ciena
Ruth Rayman, National Research Council of Canada
Larry Tarof, Jabil Optics
Ferenc Krausz, Max Planck Institue for Quantum Optics
Mordechai Segev, Israel Institute of Technology

2016
Mario Pinto, Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council
Sir Peter Knight, Imperial College London
Alexander Gaeta, Columbia University
Vlad Shalaev, Purdue University

2017
David Jones, University of British Columbia
Nicholas Karpowicz, Max Planck Institue for Quantum Optics
Eugene Arthurs, The international society for optics and photonics
Marie D’Iorio, University of Ottawa
Florian Marquardt, Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light
Keith A. Nelson, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Margaret M. Murnane, University of Colorado

2018
Adina Luican-Mayer, University of Ottawa
Ebrahim Karimi, University of Ottawa
Alan E. Willner, University of Southern California
Jeff Kimble, California Institute of Technology
Jun Ye, University of Colorado

2019

Reinhard Dörner, Goethe University Frankfurt
Eric Mazur, Harvard University
Michal Lipson, Columbia University
Peter Hommelhoff, Friedrich Alexander University
Jean-Michel Ménard, University of Ottawa

2020
Jochen Guck, Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light and the Max Planck Centre for Physics and Medicine
Din-Ping Tsai, National Taiwan University
Gérard Mourou, Haut college at Ecole polytechnique and University of Michigan
Jacob Krich, Univerity of Ottawa
Birgit Stiller, Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light
Giulio Vampa, Stanford University

2021

Nikolay Zheludev, University of Southampton
Murat Sivis, Göttingen University and Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry
Lukas Novotny, ETH Zürich
Hanieh Fattahi, Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light
Aephraim Steinberg, University of Toronto
Nick Vamivakas, University of Rochester

2022

Nirit Dudovich, Weizmann Institute of Science
Duncan England, National Research Council Canada
Jonathan Leach, Heriot-Watt University
John Miao, University of California, Los Angeles
Francesco Tani, Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light

2023
Hang Chi, University of Ottawa
Kevin Kubarych, University of Michigan
Ido Kaminer, Technion
Zhenghu Chang, University of Central Florida