Report on My Interviews

Well, both of my interviews have happened, here are some of the findings on writing in the field of Optics from Dr. Kupinski and Dr. Sasian.

Tumisu. "Interview Job Icon Job Interview Conversation" 12/23/15 via Pixabay. Public Domain.

Different Genres:

• popular articles 
• Consist of research findings presented to interested people but are not necessarily in the field.  
• The purpose of these articles is the whet the appetites of students or interested individuals and get them thinking about optics. 
• research proposals
• proposals for research written to sponsors to persuade them to support their research
• proposals are submitted, rejected, reworked and submitted again and again until they are accepted
• conferences
• generally have oral presentations on their research
• opportunity to network with other professionals or students

Challenges in writing:

Both Dr. Kupinski and Dr. Sasian expressed challenges in writing to external audiences. Dr. Kupinski revealed that she writes to audiences that are not experts in the field by imagining her days as an undergrad and explaining in a way her undergrad self would be able to understand.

Reward in writing:

In addition to his research, Dr. Sasian teaches graduate level optical engineering classes. He said that students are most of the rewarding audiences to talk to because they are fresh and bright. He says he enjoys the way their faces light up when they learn things they are actually interested in because they are in classes they choose instead of mandatory courses.

Mass media:

Popular articles can be found in mass media. These can be in the form of 30-second news segments on new technology that involves optics. More likely, mass media will contain news about ethics or context surrounding optics projects/research.

Academic Discourse & Genre

This is the Nature Photonics issue I took my photo with in the previous post. Here is analysis of the different genres in the March issue:

Nature Photonics. "2016| Volume 10" 2/15/16 via nature.com.

Genres:

There are five main sections in the journal with different purposes and intended audiences:

• Editorial: Talks about current events in the "Scientific community and Society"- intended to set the publication in context with current events
• Correspondence: Researchers respond to questions(the title of the article is the question they are answering) by other researchers by showing their work- the intended audience is directly to the person/organization that asked a question
•  News: speaks of recent discoveries and the intended course of action- intended audience is broader as the articles consist of significantly less technical jargon and is easier to understand
•  Letters: address general topics in the field of optics or related fields- the audience is an expert in the field but not necessarily the topic as the letters are less specific than the articles 
•  Articles: focuses on specific concentrations in the field of optics-the audience is an expert in the field who focuses on the same concentration as the article

From Academia to Social Media

I choose an author out of the issue of Nature Photonics randomly and did a background search to get an idea of who they are as a professional and individual.

Howie, Jason. "Social Media Apps" 3/23/13 via Flickr. Attribution 2.0 Generic.

Felix Joseph Heremans:

Social Media:

• LinkedIn page
• Facebook page
• Youtube account

Dr. Herman's LinkedIn page is descriptive and recently updated.

Dr. Heremans' facebook consists mostly of his personal life. It looks like he travels frequently with his wife. He does not post any controversial pictures or articles that can jeopardize his professional standing.

His Youtube account does not have any videos created by him and it seems he uses it to keep up with his subscriptions. He subscribes to a lot of nature/hunting/camping and technology channels.

Dr. Hermans' persona in social media is mostly his personal life and is separate from his professional persons(besides his LinkedIn). He posts vacation photos and a lot of amazing nerdy poetry. However, looking back at the publication he was in in the latest issue of Nature Photonics, I noticed he was one of six authors. I searched his facebook for his fellow authors and found he is facebook friends with half of them.

Rhetorical Analysis of Academic Journal

Nature Photonics is one of the top journals in optical engineering. Unfortunately, the U of A Library does not carry hard copies of the journal, but they have monthly electronic copies dating back from 2006. Here is the most recent issue, published in March of 2016.

Authors in this issue:

• Lei Wu, Yonghao Zhang, Yian Lei & Jason M. Reese
• Tengfei Zhang, Huicong Chang, Yingpeng Wu, Peishuang Xiao, Ningbo Yi, Yanhong Lu, Yanfeng Ma, Yi Huang, Kai Zhao, Yongsheng Chen, Xiao-Qing Yan, Zhi-Bo Liu & Jian-Guo Tian
• Sarah Kurtz, Harry Atwater, Angus Rockett, Tonio Buonassisi, Christiana Honsberg & John Benner
• Ole Sigmund, Jakob S. Jensen & Lars H. Frandsen
• Bing Shen, Peng Wang, Randy Polson & Rajesh Menon
• Alexander Y. Piggott, Jesse Lu, Konstantinos G. Lagoudakis, Jan Petykiewicz, Thomas M. Babinec & Jelena Vučković
• Lachlan Rogers & Fedor Jelezko
• Nick Hartmann & James M. Glownia
• Daniele Faccio
• Seamus Holden & Daniel Sage
• Noriaki Horiuchi
• F. Fras, Q. Mermillod, G. Nogues, C. Hoarau, C. Schneider, M. Kamp, S. Höfling, W. Langbein & J. Kasprzak
• Sabine Keiber, Shawn Sederberg, Alexander Schwarz, Michael Trubetskov, Volodymyr Pervak, Ferenc Krausz & Nicholas Karpowicz
• Kevin A. Fischer, Kai Müller, Armand Rundquist, Tomas Sarmiento, Alexander Y. Piggott, Yousif Kelaita, Constantin Dory, Konstantinos G. Lagoudakis & Jelena Vučković
• Piotr Ryczkowski, Margaux Barbier, Ari T. Friberg, John M. Dudley & Goëry Genty
• T. J. Hammond, Graham G. Brown, Kyung Taec Kim, D. M. Villeneuve & P. B. Corkum
• K. C. Prince, E. Allaria, C. Callegari, R. Cucini, G. De Ninno, S. Di Mitri, B. Diviacco, E. Ferrari, P. Finetti, D. Gauthier, L. Giannessi, N. Mahne, G. Penco, O. Plekan, L. Raimondi, P. Rebernik, E. Roussel, C. Svetina, M. Trovò, M. Zangrando, M. Negro, P. Carpeggiani, M. Reduzzi, G. Sansone, A. N. Grum-Grzhimailo, E. V. Gryzlova, S. I. Strakhova, K. Bartschat, N. Douguet, J. Venzke, D. Iablonskyi, Y. Kumagai, T. Takanashi, K. Ueda, A. Fischer, M. Coreno, F. Stienkemeier, Y. Ovcharenko, T. Mazza & M. Meyer
• Sunil Mittal, Sriram Ganeshan, Jingyun Fan, Abolhassan Vaezi & Mohammad Hafezi
• Christopher G. Yale, F. Joseph Heremans, Brian B. Zhou, Adrian Auer, Guido Burkard & David D. Awschalom
• Weilin Liu, Ming Li, Robert S. Guzzon, Erik J. Norberg, John S. Parker, Mingzhi Lu, Larry A. Coldren & Jianping Yao
• Chien-Hung Chiang & Chun-Guey Wu

The authors are mostly grad students. Others are research professors and some are in industry. These people also come from all over the world. As Nature Photonics is an international journal, the research come from many individuals of different countries.

Purpose and Audience:

The intended audience of the this publication are definitely experts in the field. When reading the summaries and abstracts of the different articles in the issue, high level terminology is used and builds upon the expectation that the reader already had knowledge in the field.

Context:

The editorial sets up the context of this specific issue. the editorial is titled "Identity Crisis" and it talks about a not-for-profit initiative called ORCID that was created in 2009. ORCID's purpose is to assign a unique 16-digit ID code to every researcher.

The idea is that many people have the same name, so identifying researchers by name alone is not sufficient to identify someone. Instead an ID number allows researchers to be "clearly identified and connected to their contributions across time, disciplines and borders" The initiative gained a lot of support and more than 250 countries have registered.

The purpose is to encourage the researcher in Nature Photonics to register with ORCID, as it is not yet mandatory for the journal like it is for journals like IEEE, PLoS, eLife, Science, and EMBO.

 Message:

The opening piece of the issue about ORCID was written to persuade researchers into registering. Its message was towards the scientific community and the sharing/identification of research.

The actual articles had the message of presenting research and educating other experts in the field. 

Purpose:

Most of the content were correspondence articles which are reaction texts to question sin previous issues. Researchers would choose a question to answer, title their article with that question and show the answer with their research. These responses are intended for the original questioner, which means they are written to fellow experts in the field and concentration.

There were also a lot of news articles that are intended for people with less knowledge in the field. They consist of recent discoveries or massive breakthroughs. However, these news articles are less research papers but more summary and communication.

My Interviewees as Professional Writers

Here are descriptions of the specific type of research Dr. Meredith Kupinsky and Dr. Jose Saisian are involved in.

Albertella, Paul. "Alien Research Lab" 10/20/13 via Flickr. Attribution 2.0 Generic.

Dr. Meredith Kupinski

Dr. Kupinski travels frequently, around every 6 weeks, to attend conferences or seminars. She gives a lot of presentations and interviews. She also writes two or three professional research papers a year.

Professional Publications:

• Seminar: Estimation Tasks in Emission Tomography (8/10/12)
• summary
• Tomographic imaging in clinical uses: Dr, Kupinski takes many images at a bunch of different angles and reconstructs the angular samples into images that are quantitatively accurate. This allows her to have a more accurate estimation of the diagnosis so doctors can treat it more effectively. This type of estimation imaging also works in "real time" so the images are generated quickly. 
• Research Experience for Teachers(RET)- An NSF-funded research experience for teachers that offers high scool science teachers from Native American Reservations a summer sabbatical at the University of Arizona
• context
• medium- oral presentation with PowerPoint
• audience- R.I.T upper level undergrad to grad students/interested faculty members- most likely in engineering and image science
• Where- Center for Imaging Sciences at R.I.T.
• overall message
• present recent research on imaging tomography
• educational outreach to Native American teachers to improve STEM education on reservations- slides at tend of presentation detailing program
• allow students and teachers alike to preserve culture and traditions while still studying STEM
• talk about career and how she got into the work she is in- inspire students to pursue what they love
• purpose
• convince people of the significance of tomography in clinical uses
• raise awareness of education outreach work with Native Americans

• Interview: Teachers' Voices with Ofelia Zepeda and Meredith Kupinski (7/5/12)
• summary
• Introduce a NSF funded program to give k-12 science teachers research opportunities in labs at the U of A in order to promote STEM education
• context
• medium- audio interview
• audience- listeners of Arizona Public Media which is located in Tucson. The audience may be confined tot he Tucson area.
• where- Arizona Public Media
• overall message
• Promote STEM education for k-12 students by encouraging the teachers to value and participate in research

Dr. Jose Sasian

Dr. Sasian participates in a lot of research and he teaches in graduate level photonics classes at the U of A.

Professional Publications:

• University lecture: OPTI 517 Lens Design(Fall 2015)
• summary- Lecture notes, homework assignments, and course syllabus/expectations
• context
• medium- online, published through the Optics college at the University of Arizona
• audience- graduate students studying optics and photonics
• purpose- class details, resources and expectations

• Book: Introduction to Aberrations in Optical Imaging Systems (2/25/13)
• summary- book on the theory of aberrations
• context
• medium- textbook
• audience- grad students in optical engineering, researchers and technicians in academia or industry
• published by Cambridge University Press located in the UK
• purpose- information and education aimed at experts or high level students in the field of optics

My Discipline

As the overarching question for this project is to determine how professionals in optics communicate to different audiences, let's take a look at some of the leaders in the field of optics and their places in mass media. 

go_nils. "Fiber Optics" 2/11/9 via Flickr. Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic.

1) What do students optical engineering learn how to do?

Students in optics learn how to manipulate light. They can learn about creating or engineering materials to preform specific light related tasks. They can learn about integrating optical design into mechanical systems. Or, they can learn about integrating optics in electronics.

2) What do people who get degrees in optics usually go on to do for work?

Graduates can do anything from working with medical imaging to analyzing artwork with lasers. They can also work for defense contractors and the military. Furthermore, there are many opportunities in astronomy and satellite technologies.

3) What drew you to this field?

I remember a day in physics 2 during high school when we started talking about light. My teacher had just revealed the dual nature of light as both a particle and wave. I remember being stunned after that revelation and went home that night to talk to my father about how strange light was. He told me that there was an entire field dedicated to studying light and its applications: optical engineering.

I remember googling optics and coming across satellites and amazing satellite designs that incorporated origami! As origami has always been a passion of mine, I immediately learned how to fold self-collapsing and self-expanding satellites using the Miura fold along with the math behind it.

I knew I wanted to study in a field that has a wide variety of applications and purposes. Optics appeals to me because it is so vast and has crazy things like light and origami that I cannot wait to learn about!!

4) Name three of the leaders/most exciting people involved in this field right now in 2016. Why are they interesting or exciting to you? 

• Robert Lang- Robert Lang is one of the first to integrate mathematics deeply with origami. Through his research with origami, he has come up with many usages of origami in engineering. He helped the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, California design crease patterns and methods of folding optical lenses for the Eyeglass telescope, a  massive telescope that can be folded and launched into space.
• General Electric- GE is a leader in medical imaging. Medical imaging is extremely important as it is a non-invasive method of diagnosing conditions. They are currently working on a new Revolution CT scanner that allows doctors to take detailed images of beating hearts, lungs, liver and other organs. The pictures they produce are amazing and detail much more than what was previously possible.
• International Society for Optics and Photonics(SPIE)- SPIE is a non-profit professional society. It is an extremely large network of technical conferences, exhibitions, and educational programs for R&D in optics. SPIE publishes peer-reviewed scientific journals and many other resources.

4) What are the names of three leading academic/scholarly journals in your field? Where are they published? 

• Nature Photonics- published by the Nature Publishing Group which originated in the UK
• Optics Express- published by OSA, the Optical Society of America
• IEEE Journal of Quantum Electronics- published by the IEEE Photonics Society which originated in America 

My Interviewees on Social Media

Now it's time to do some (purely professional) cyber-stalking on the two people I am interviewing. Here is an in-depth analysis of Dr. Kupinsky and Dr. Saisian's professional social media presence.

Mkhmarketing. "The Art of Social Media" 7/31/11 via Flickr. Attribution 2.0 Generic.

Dr. Meredith Kupinsky, nee Meredith Whitaker

Social Media Networks:

• LinkedIn- (link)
• Facebook- (link)- Does not have a facebook but is part of an interview posted on the facebook of Arizona Public media

Presence in Social Media:
Dr. Kupinsky's presence in social media is very minimal. She created a LinkedIn but no other social media accounts. A professional interview she was in by Arizona Spotlight was posted on the facebook of Arizona Public Media. However, she does not have her own facebook.

Personas:
Dr. Kupinsky's interview involved her work in creating a program to engage Native American Kids in math and science. Her persona in social media is purely her professional work as Education Director in Optics at the U of A.

Dr. Jose Sasian

Social Media Networks:

• Youtube- (link)- A presentation in Spanish by Dr. Sasian on the Giant Magellan Telescope

Presence in Social Media:
Dr. Sasian's presence in social media is non-existent. He does not have a LinkedIn, facebook, twitter, or any other social media account. One of his presentations was uploaded to Youtube, but not by Dr. Sasian. His book is sold on Amazon, but he has no profile on Amazon.

Persons:
Dr. Sasian's presence in social media is completely professional and does not differ from his persona in the academic journals.