🏆1st Place: $300
🥈2nd Place: $200
🥉3rd Place: $100
2:45 - 3:15
3:15 - 3:30
Jim Kafka — President of Optica
3:30 - 4:00
Nexus is pioneering the development of fully integrated photonic engines that can be fabricated, tested, and singulated at wafer scale—redefining the paradigm of photonic integrated circuits. This approach enables a shift from traditional, high-cost, low-integration photonics to complex, chip-scale solutions embedding complete photonic front-ends for diverse systems. By overcoming the long-standing trade-offs between size, cost, and performance, this transformation has the potential to unlock new markets and applications. The talk will highlight recent technical breakthroughs and provide a commercialization outlook for these disruptive technologies.
Tin Komljenovic — Nexus Inc.
4:00 - 4:30
Majid Ebnali Heidari — Ozen/SimuTech
4:30 - 5:00
Computational imaging is the co-design of both optical hardware and image processing algorithms to push the capabilities of imaging systems beyond what's possible in traditional systems. In the first part of this talk, I'll discuss an academic project in hyperspectral microscopy where we use multiplexing of light and compressed sensing to recover high resolution snapshot spectral imaging. In the second part, I'll show how computational imaging translates to industry. At GLASS Imaging, we're using AI to extract the full image quality potential from smartphone cameras by reversing lens aberrations and sensor imperfections.
Neerja Aggarwal — GLASS Imaging
Speakers
Jim Kafka received the B.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the Institute of Optics at the University of Rochester in 1977 and 1983, respectively. For 42 years, he has been developing new products and was the Chief Technology Officer for Spectra-Physics. Jim is currently the first Emeritus Fellow of our parent company MKS. In addition to authoring numerous journal articles, conference presentations and seminars, he co-authored a book chapter on Ultrafast Nonlinear Optics and holds 45 patents. Jim was the principal designer on three products, the Tsunami, the Opal, and the Millennia X, which have won technology achievement awards.
Jim has served the optics community as the Ultrafast Phenomena topical editor for JOSA B and the co-chair for the CLEO and Advanced Solid-State Photonics conferences. He is a Fellow of Optica and has served as a Distinguished Traveling Lecturer for the Division of Laser Science of the APS. Jim has lectured at the Siegman School on Lasers and served as Optica President for 2025
Tin Komljenovic, Ph.D., is the CEO and co-founder of Nexus, where he leads the commercialization of heterogeneous photonics technologies across AI, quantum, defense, and AR/VR applications. A recognized expert in the field, Tin has played a pivotal role in advancing multiple heterogeneous photonics initiatives throughout his career. His innovative work has led to the issuance of over 20 patents, with many more pending.
Majid Ebnali Heidari, Ph.D. is the Technical Manager of Optics & Photonics at Ozen Engineering, an Ansys Elite Channel Partner. With more than 18 years of combined academic and industry experience, he leads simulation and consulting projects in Lumerical, Zemax, and Speos, supporting customers in photonics and optoelectronic design. Before joining Ozen, Majid spent 15 years as an Associate Professor in electrical and photonics engineering, publishing over 80 papers and pioneering research on slow light in silicon photonic chips.
His current interests include photonic integrated circuits, co-packaged optics, silicon photonics, AR/VR, and miniaturized optical systems. As the Founding President of Optica Silicon Valley, Majid promotes collaboration between academia and industry while continuing to advance practical simulation workflows that bridge photonics R&D and real-world applications.
Neerja Aggarwal is a light enthusiast working at the forefront of optics and AI at GLASS Imaging. Her expertise spans scientific imaging, hardware development, and reconstruction algorithms. Neerja attended MIT for her B.S. in Electrical Engineering and Theater Arts and M.Eng. in EECS. And, she received her Ph.D. in the Computational Imaging Lab at UC Berkeley. Neerja has also worked as an electro-optic engineer at med-tech, biotech, energy, and consumer product companies. Having seen the importance of imaging and sensing across industries, she is passionate about developing deep optics solutions at GLASS that unlock new imaging modalities.
