An Optical Society Senior membership for Prof. Olivier Deparis

Olivier Deparis received his PhD in applied sciences in 1997 and worked as a post-doc researcher in several universities worldwide.  He joined the University of Namur in 2005 and became a Professor in 2010.  He is Director of the solid-state physics laboratory of the Department of physics.

Prof. Deparis has been a member of Optical Society (OSA) since 1999 (with interruption between 2004 and 2006).  As an OSA member, he has continuously been a reviewer for Optics Express, Optics Letters, Applied Optics or JOSA B.  From 2013 to 2019, he served the OSA as associated editor for Optics Express.  He is the author of more than 170 articles in peer-reviewed journals, a large majority being related to photonics.

Earlier this year, he was contacted by Yann Amouroux, Director of OSA Europe, who encouraged him to write a statement letter in order to become a senior OSA member.  He was supported by two senior OSA members, Prof. Dr. Ir. Francis Berghmans (VUB – Belgium) and Prof. Amin Abdolvand (University of Dundee – UK).

During the past ten years, Prof. Deparis pursued his research in the field of optics, with excursions in material sciences, nanostructures, solar energy, and photocatalysis. In 2014, he initiated a turn to cultural heritage science by launching transdisciplinary researches on parchments, involving two UNamur institutes, the Namur Institute of Structured Matter (NISM) and Patrimonies, Transmissions and Heritage (PaThs), in the Pergamenum21 (P21) project.  In November 2019, he organized a transdisciplinary workshop (The physics of Parchment) gathering European experts in the field of parchment conservation and historical studies.  One year later, he organized a parchment-making workshop in the framework of the P21 project and in collaboration with the Beasts to Craft (B2C) project. He is currently working on two other transdisciplinary projects, “Parchments and Inks”, funded by the NISM and the “Orval” project, funded by the Foundation Roi Baudouin.

The Optical Society promotes and delivers scientific and technical information on optics and photonics worldwide that is authoritative, accessible and archived.  Since 1916, OSA has been the world’s leading champion for optics and photonics, uniting and educating scientists, engineers, educators, technicians and business leaders worldwide. 

Forthcoming activities

• Fifteen years of experience in the field of optics in living organisms let him to write a book together with Dr. Sébastien Mouchet.  The book is due to be published in September 2021 by Artech House (London-Boston) in the Applied Photonics series. 
• He is an invited speaker at the 950^th anniversary of the Orval foundation celebration on 11 September 2021, together with Prof. Xavier Hermand on the topic of the Orval manuscripts. “Autopsy of a scriptorium: Orval parchments put to the test of bio-archeology”.  More info…
• He will take part in the bePOM21 online conference on 23 and 24 September 2021.  The goal of bePOM is to strengthen the Belgian photonics network, associating research groups from all the universities in Belgium working on fundamental and applied topics in photonics. More info…

Contact: Olivier Deparis: olivier.deparis@unamur.be – More info: https://www.osa.org/en-us/home/

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