Research at the Speed of Light
Join us for the FMS Research Colloquium Series, Research at the Speed of Light, where pioneering scientists and researchers explore the forefront of laser and photon science.
This dynamic series showcases groundbreaking research across various scientific disciplines, all leveraging the unparalleled speed and precision of light-based techniques.
Delve into the latest advancements, from quantum mechanics to medical imaging, and discover how these innovations are revolutionizing our understanding of the universe. Don’t miss this opportunity to engage with the brightest minds in the field and witness science moving at the speed of light.
All are welcome to attend, with a focus on undergraduate and graduate students in the Faculty of Mathematics and Science. We welcome members of the Brock community as well as the wider Niagara region to attend for free.
Brock members with a valid Brock email account may register free through ExperienceBU:
If you don’t have a Brock account, email us your intent to attend and tell us how many guests you will bring:
Upcoming Lectures
NEW ROOM LOCATION – Thursday, Sept. 19: Donna Strickland, 2018 Physics Nobel Prize laureate and Professor, Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Waterloo. Join us in the Sean O’Sullivan Theatre in Thistle complex.
November: Art Van Der Est, Professor Emeritus, Department of Chemistry, Brock University, and Douglas Bruce, Professor Emeritus, Department of Biological Sciences, Brock University.
January: Barak Shoshany, Assistant Professor of Physics, Brock University.
Friday, February 28: Aleksander Necakov, Associate Professor, Biological Sciences
Nobel Prize Laureate Lecture: Generating high-intensity, ultrashort optical pulses
Presented by Donna Strickland, Canadian optical physicist and pulsed lasers pioneer
NEW LOCATION – Thursday, Sept 19, 2024 from 7 to 8 p.m. in the Sean O’Sullivan Theatre in Thistle Complex, Brock University Campus
Donna Strickland is a professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Waterloo and is one of the recipients of the Nobel Prize in Physics 2018 for developing chirped pulse amplification with Gérard Mourou, her PhD supervisor at the time. They published this Nobel-winning research in 1985 when Strickland was a PhD student at the University of Rochester in New York state. Together they paved the way toward the most intense laser pulses ever created.
With the invention of lasers, the intensity of a light wave was increased by orders of magnitude over what had been achieved with a light bulb or sunlight. This much higher intensity led to new phenomena being observed, such as violet light coming out when red light went into the material.
After Donna Strickland and Gérard Mourou developed chirped pulse amplification (CPA), the intensity again increased by more than a factor of 1,000 and it once again made new types of interactions possible between light and matter.
They developed a laser that could deliver short pulses of light that knocked the electrons off their atoms. This new understanding of laser-matter interactions, led to the development of new machining techniques that are used in laser eye surgery or micromachining of glass used in cell phones.
More about Donna Strickland
Strickland was a research associate at the National Research Council Canada, a physicist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and a member of technical staff at Princeton University. In 1997, she joined the University of Waterloo, where her ultrafast laser group develops high-intensity laser systems for nonlinear optics investigations.
Strickland was named a Companion of the Order of Canada. She is a recipient of a Sloan Research Fellowship, a Premier’s Research Excellence Award and a Cottrell Scholar Award. Strickland served as the president of the Optical Society (OSA) in 2013. She is a fellow of OSA and SPIE, the Royal Society of Canada and the Royal Society. She is an honorary fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering as well as the Institute of Physics. She is an international member of the US National Academy of Science.
Strickland earned a PhD in optics from the University of Rochester and a B.Eng. from McMaster University.
Past talks from The Anthropocene – From Dusk ‘Till Dawn
‘The Anthropocene: From Dusk till Dawn’ focused on humans’ dark environmental impacts on the world and the bright possibilities.
Speakers from Brock and the external community discussed some of the ways human influence is significantly changing the Earth and what is being done to remedy its negative effects.
As industrialization reshapes our planet, the need for adaptive innovation grows increasingly urgent. Central to this transformation is the shift towards sustainable practices and a circular mindset. The case study of the Destiny Copper start-up redefines waste as a valuable resource, highlighting the significant economic and ecological benefits of reclaiming stranded resources. Such strategies are essential as we navigate the complex challenges of modern industrialization and entrepreneurship.
About Joshua Clark:
Dr. Josh Clarke received his PhD in Inorganic Chemistry at Brock University with the Nikonov Group. During his graduate studies, Josh developed sustainable catalytic systems providing viable alternatives to the hazardous and waste-generating traditional methods. He is a EurJOC special collection author and is the recipient of the Ontario Graduate Scholarship (OGS) and the Horizons Scholarship. As the Lead Chemist at Destiny Copper, Josh works with a dynamic team of Brock students and alumni on cutting edge practical research right here in the Greater Niagara Region. Their work is pushing forward sustainable mining practices and novel processes aimed at providing the metals and materials critical to Canada’s energy transition.
The lecture took place Friday June 6, 2024 from noon to 1 p.m. in Rankin Family Pavilion, room 214/215.
Dr. Edward Doolittle Associate Dean, Research and Associate Professor, Mathematics, Department of Indigenous Knowledge & Science, First Nations University of Canada will speak about the mathematics that we can carry with us – not in books or journals – but in our own minds, perhaps with a small amount of material culture which can also be carried on the person.
“It is mathematics consistent with Indigenous oral traditions, which might be appreciated by our ancestors before the Anthropocene, and also important again when the Anthropocene draws to a close,” said Doolittle.
About Edward Doolittle:
Edward Doolittle is Kanyen’kehake (Mohawk) from Six Nations in southern Ontario. He earned a PhD in pure mathematics (partial differential equations) from the University of Toronto in 1997. From then until 2001 he worked for Queen’s University’s Aboriginal Teacher Education Program, helping to administer the program and teaching Indigenous Mathematics Education, and from 2000 to 2001 he studied the Mohawk language in immersion with Onkwewenna Kentsyohkwa (Our Language Group) on Six Nations. From 2001 he has been on the faculty of First Nations University and the University of Regina, currently as Associate Professor of Mathematics and Associate Dean, Research. He is a recipient of a Governor General’s Gold Medal and of an honourable mention on the William Lowell Putnam Competition.
The lecture took place Monday May 13, 2024 from noon to 1 p.m. in Rankin Family Pavilion, room 214/215.
Assistant Professor Emami will present his research on debiasing large language models and improving their trustworthiness. His work delves into advanced prompt engineering techniques and tackles paradoxes in generative artificial intelligence, striving to enhance the reliability and ethical application of these systems.
Research Interests:
Ali Emami’s research is driven by the goal of integrating intelligent machines more naturally into our daily lives, with a particular focus on probing and testing large language models to enhance their communication and reasoning capabilities. By developing advanced prompt engineering techniques, I aim to address the challenges of natural language processing and improve systems in dialogue, summarization, and recommendation, ensuring these models are both trustworthy and practically applicable.
The lecture took place Friday March 8, 2024 from 2 to 3 p.m. in Rankin Family Pavilion, room 214/215.
Professor Liette Vasseur will speak about her interdisciplinary research in sustainability, such as climate change adaption and resilience, sustainable agriculture development, community-based ecosystem management and biodiversity conservation.
Affiliations:
Vasseur represents the Department of Biological Sciences, the Environmental Sustainability Research Centre, is a Cool Climate Oenology and Viticulture Institute Fellow and Co-Editor-in-Chief, Botany (Canadian Science Publishing). She is also a Deputy Chair and Vice-Chair for North America at the Commission for Ecosystem Management of the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
The lecture took place Wednesday, February 28, 2024 from 11 a.m. to noon in Rankin Family Pavilion, room 214/215.
Dr. Francine McCarthy has been an Earth Sciences professor at Brock University since 2002. She is a micropaleontologist interested in the use of microfossils to reconstruct paleoenvironmental conditions (climate, hydrology, water quality, anthropogenic impact, food-web interactions), particularly in meromictic lakes which are excellent archives of continental environments. She is leading the effort to investigate the potential of the varved sequence in the hydrologically unique Crawford Lake to define the Anthropocene, which has recently made headlines in major news outlets such as the Washington Post and The New York Times. In her keynote talk, she will address how the sediments at the bottom of Crawford Lake hold evidence of the environmental changes that humans have brought to our planet, possibly marking the start of the new geologic epoch known as the Anthropocene.
The lecture took place Monday, Nov. 12, 2023 from 3 to 4 p.m. in Pond Inlet.