In collaboration with Professor Andrea Armani from USC, Orad will be co-chairing POM, the Photonics Online Meetup. The plan is to reduce the family burden of conference travel, reduce the carbon footprint and cost of participating in conferences, and make conferences more open and accessible to everyone. This project has been a joint collaboration with researchers from around the world — the organizing committee includes Igor Aharonovich from UT Sydney, Mikhail Kats from University of Wisconsin-Madison, Rachel Grange from ETH Zurich, Riccardo Sapienza from Imperial College London, and Sylvain Gigan from Sorbonne Universite.

Click here to read more about POM.

Below is some press about POM:

• uOttawa Teaming up with Photonics Leaders to Launch Global, Online Academic Conference (uOttawa press release — version française)
• Virtual conferences get real (Nature Reviews Materials 5, 167 (2020))
• Photonics from afar (Nature Photonics 14, 137 (2020))
• Research intelligence: how to organise a virtual conference  (Times Higher Education)
• Rethinking conferences (Nature Reviews Physics 2, 67 (2020))
• One of the world’s first global, online academic conferences to be held January 13, 2020 (Eurekalert)
• A Different Kind of Conference (Optics & Photonics News)
• SPIE Cancels DCS In-Person Conference, COVID-19 Leads to Surge in Online Conferences (Photonics.com)
• 3 Questions with Andrea Armani (Photonics.com)
• History-Making Online Photonics Conference Draws Participants From Around The World (USC press release)
• An international conference – without flight emissions (ETH Zurich press release)
• Physicists to hold free global online-only conference (Imperial College London press release)
• Photonics leaders team up to launch global, online academic conference (University of Wisconsin-Madison press release)
• Photonics Leaders Join Together for Global, Online Academic Conference (Photonics media)
• Universities urged to radically cut flights to help climate (Times Higher Education)
• Le photonique online meetup: Une expérience réussie de conférence virtuelle en photonique (photoniques.com)