The past two years have been fraught with change. In both our professional and personal lives, we have needed to adapt to a world in which people are further away from each other and technology has taken charge of daily life. We are all sick and tired of seeing people on a screen from 7 am to 6 pm, and "work from home" has made it difficult to separate work from home.
Never has this been more apparent than when conferences moved to a virtual setting. "Going away to a conference" is hard to do when you are only going as far as your computer. So, attending a virtual technical meeting became about juggling one more thing, rather than a time to meet old friends and colleagues, and make new ones. And I have been completely out of touch when it comes to new products and technologies without exhibits and meetings with my industry colleagues.
As Photonics West 2022 approached, it was all my group at Vanderbilt University could think about. But navigating the pandemic has been all about timing. What felt safe yesterday could turn on its nose the next day or next week. When the omicron variant hit, we all kept our fingers crossed that the wave would pass, or at least start to fade, by the time of the meeting. It was close, but SPIE braved on, and on 21 January I landed in San Francisco ready to tackle being SPIE President at the Society's largest meeting.
I was prepared to greet everyone and share my personal experiences with first timers and hang out with old friends. I brought nearly my entire team since none of us had been to a meeting since Photonics West 2020! Two years is a long time to go without sharing your scientific discoveries, especially for second and third year PhD students.
And indeed I met and greeted many attendees and exhibitors and nearly everyone was thrilled to be there! We are a close knit community and this showed with everyone willing to do their part to make this conference a success. Early career professionals and students and even staff pitched in when needed and overall, everyone I spoke to agreed that the success of Photonics West portended to a positive outlook to 2022.
For the exhibitors present, the meeting provided opportunities for in depth interactions and meaningful conversations with technical conference and exhibition attendees which are vital to business in the coming year. I was pleased to meet exhibitors and attendees from not just the United States but also from France, Germany, Switzerland, The Netherlands, Japan, India, and more in the exhibit halls and exchange business cards while toasting to the return of Photonics West.
After a full and exhausting week, I am thankful for all who attended, and also understand why others chose not to. For me, it has once again become clear that in-person connection cannot be replaced, and I am proud of the Society's efforts to support conferences that enable them. I look forward to the coming year and hope to see more of you at many more in-person meetings to come.
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Anita Mahadevan-Jansen 2022 SPIE President |
