Events Calendar

Biological Waveguides

Speaker: Vasudevan (Vengu) Lakshminarayanan, Professor of Vision Science, Physics, and Electrical and Computer Engineering; University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada

Talk Title: Biological Waveguides

Abstract: It is well known that the photoreceptors of the eye act as classical fiber optic elements. These were first determined psychophysically by Stiles and Crawford about 75 years ago. There is considerable evidence of waveguide modal patterns in isolated photoreceptor elements. Many theoretical models have been developed to describe waveguiding in photoreceptors. This talk will review some aspects of waveguiding in photoreceptors and will introduce a possible fiber sensor based on biological waveguiding.



Biography: After finishing high school in Los Angeles, Vengu moved to India, where he received his BS and MS degrees in physics and mathematics. He then obtained a Ph.D. from University of California at Berkeley. He stayed on at Berkeley as a researcher/manager of a large NIH funded lab before moving to the medical optics industry (Allergan Medical Optics in Irvine). He is a professor of Vision Science, Physics and ECE at the University of Waterloo, prior to which he was affiliated with the University of Missouri. He has also been a Kavli Scholar at the Kavli Institute of Theoretical Physics at UCSB, an adjunct professor at UC Irvine and is a current associate of the Michigan Institute for Theoretical Physics at Ann Arbor as well as a member of the Center for Bioengineering and Biotechnology at UW. He has published widely in areas ranging from classical optics, quantum physics, applied math and vision science. He is on the editorial board of a number of journals including Journal of Modern Optics and Optics Letters. He has published about 10 books, including the recently published Quantum Information (McGraw Hill), and the upcoming Dihedral Fourier Analysis (Springer). He was an editor of the 5 volume Handbook of Optics (McGraw Hill). Honors include being a co-recipient of the 2011 SPIE educator award. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society, OSA, SPIE, AAAS and the Institute of Physics (UK).

Host: Prof. Alexander Sawchuk

Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - B18

Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

Contact: Talyia Veal