On my last day in Vancouver, I visited the University of British Columbia (UBC). Through the SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics, I was able to reach out to students of the SPIE UBC student chapter and arrange to visit UBC. A lot of people are away for the summer, but I had the pleasure of having a short meeting with Edison.
Edison is working in silicon photonics and making devices that are 10-100s nanometers (1,000 to 10,000 smaller than the width of your hair!) and that use light to detect molecules, and in particular certain types of pesticides. It was fascinating visiting his labs where he can prepare the chemistry and do the optical experiments.
UBC has a lovely campus. It’s so big that I had to drive around it to take it all in. Here’s what I guess the campus centre looks like.
There’s also a botanical garden on campus, with lots of trails. It’s a very relaxing place, with lots of walks through shaded areas and many beautiful flowers.
