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2016

Confessions of a converted lecturer, at Meet the Scholar Lecture, Harvard University, Graduate Commons Program (Cambridge, MA), Wednesday, March 9, 2016:
talk_2620.pdf
I thought I was a good teacher until I discovered my students were just memorizing information rather than learning to understand the material. Who was to blame? The students? The material? I will explain how I came to the agonizing conclusion that the culprit was neither of these. It was my teaching that caused students to fail! I will show how I have adjusted my approach to teaching and how it has improved my students' performance significantly
Why you can pass tests and sill fail in the real world, at 2016 Educating for Careers Conference, Sacramento Convention Center (Sacramento, CA), Tuesday, March 8, 2016:
talk_2614.pdf
Why is it that stellar students sometimes fail in the workplace while dropouts succeed? One reason is that most, if not all, of our current assessment practices are inauthentic. Just as the lecture focuses on the delivery of information to students, so does assessment often focus on having students regurgitate that same information back to the instructor. Consequently, assessment fails to focus on the skills that are relevant in life in the 21st century. Assessment has been called the "hidden curriculum" as it is an important driver of students' study habits. Unless we rethink our approach to... Read more about Why you can pass tests and sill fail in the real world
Less is More: Extreme Optics with Zero Refractive Index, at Robert Resnick Lecture, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (Troy, NY), Wednesday, March 2, 2016:
talk_2615.pdf
Nanotechnology has enabled the development of nanostructured composite materials (metamaterials) with exotic optical properties not found in nature. In the most extreme case, we can create materials which support propagating light waves that have infinite phase velocity, corresponding to a refractive index of zero. This zero index can only be achieved by simultaneously controlling the electric and magnetic resonances of the nanostructure. We present an in-plane metamaterial design consisting of silicon pillar arrays, embedded within a polymer matrix and sandwiched between gold layers. Using... Read more about Less is More: Extreme Optics with Zero Refractive Index
Innovating Education to Educate Innovators, at American Association of Publishers 2016 General Annual Meeting, New York University (New York, NY), Tuesday, March 1, 2016:
talk_2586.pdf
Over the past decades there has been a concerted push away from passive lecturing to active engagement in the classroom. A successful implementation of the so-called flipped classroom requires students to come to class prepared, either by reading the textbook or watching a pre-recorded video. A variety approaches have been devised to get students to take responsibility for this information transfer, but none manage to get all students to participate, compromising the in-class activities. I will present a new approach to get every student to prepare for every class using a new social learning... Read more about Innovating Education to Educate Innovators
Teaching Physics, Conservation Laws First, at Webinar (Cambridge, MA), Friday, February 26, 2016:
talk_2617.pdf
The Principles and Practice of Physics is a groundbreaking new calculus-based introductory physics textbook that uses a unique organization and pedagogy to allow students to develop a true conceptual understanding of physics alongside the quantitative skills needed in the course. The book organizes introductory physics around the conservation principles and provides a unified contemporary view of introductory physics. In this talk we will discuss the unique architecture of the book, the conservation-laws-first approach, and results obtained with this book.
Less is More: Extreme Optics with Zero Refractive Index, at Physics Colloquium, UMass Lowell (Lowell, MA), Wednesday, February 24, 2016:
talk_2556.pdf
Nanotechnology has enabled the development of nanostructured composite materials (metamaterials) with exotic optical properties not found in nature. In the most extreme case, we can create materials which support light waves that propagate with infinite phase velocity, corresponding to a refractive index of zero. This zero index can only be achieved by simultaneously controlling the electric and magnetic resonances of the nanostructure. We present an in-plane metamaterial design consisting of silicon pillar arrays, embedded within a polymer matrix and sandwiched between gold layers. Using an... Read more about Less is More: Extreme Optics with Zero Refractive Index
Less is More: Extreme Optics with Zero Refractive Index, at Photonics West 2016, Integrated Optics: Devices, Materials, and Technologies XX (San Francisco, CA), Monday, February 15, 2016:
talk_2569.pdf
Nanotechnology has enabled the development of nanostructured composite materials (metamaterials) with exotic optical properties not found in nature. In the most extreme case, we can create materials which support light waves that propagate with infinite phase velocity, corresponding to a refractive index of zero. This zero index can only be achieved by simultaneously controlling the electric and magnetic resonances of the nanostructure. We present an in-plane metamaterial design consisting of silicon pillar arrays, embedded within a polymer matrix and sandwiched between gold layers. Using an... Read more about Less is More: Extreme Optics with Zero Refractive Index
Less is More: Extreme Optics with Zero Refractive Index, at Applied Physics Colloquium, Harvard University (Cambridge, MA), Friday, February 12, 2016:
talk_2604.pdf
Nanotechnology has enabled the development of nanostructured composite materials (metamaterials) with exotic optical properties not found in nature. In the most extreme case, we can create materials which support light waves that propagate with infinite phase velocity, corresponding to a refractive index of zero. This zero index can only be achieved by simultaneously controlling the electric and magnetic resonances of the nanostructure. We present an in-plane metamaterial design consisting of silicon pillar arrays, embedded within a polymer matrix and sandwiched between gold layers. Using an... Read more about Less is More: Extreme Optics with Zero Refractive Index
Black silicon, at Institute for Atomic and Molecular Science, Academia Sinica (Taipei, Taiwan), Friday, January 29, 2016:
talk_2581.pdf
Shining intense, ultrashort laser pulses on the surface of a crystalline silicon wafer drastically changes the optical, material and electronic properties of the wafer. The resulting textured surface is highly absorbing and looks black to the eye. The properties of this 'black silicon' make it useful for a wide range of commercial devices. In particular, we have been able to fabricate highly-sensitive PIN photodetectors using this material. The sensitivity extends to wavelengths of 1600 nm making them particularly useful for applications in communications and remote sensing.

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