Joyce Poon is Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Toronto and Director of the Max Planck Institute of Microstructure Physics, where her research focuses on developing new optical devices for applications in neurotechnology. She is also an honorary professor at the

Technical University of Berlin The Technical University of Berlin (official name both in English and german: link=no, Technische Universität Berlin, also known as TU Berlin and Berlin Institute of Technology) is a public research university located in Berlin, Germany. It was ...

. She is a Fellow of Optica (formerly the Optical Society), and has been serving as a Director-At-Large for the society since January 2021.

Early life and education

Poon was born in Hong Kong and grew up in Toronto. She obtained a B.A.Sc. in engineering from the University of Toronto in 2002 and an M.S. in

Electrical engineering Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems which use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...

from California Institute of Technology in 2007. She stayed at Caltech to carry out her PhD under the supervision of Professor

Amnon Yariv Amnon Yariv (born April 13, 1930) is an Israeli-American professor of applied physics and electrical engineering at Caltech, known for innovations in optoelectronics. Yariv obtained his B.S., M.S. and PhD. in electrical engineering from Universit ...

. Her thesis studied ways to control

slow light Slow light is the propagation of an optical pulse or other modulation of an optical carrier at a very low group velocity. Slow light occurs when a propagating pulse is substantially slowed by the interaction with the medium in which the propagatio ...

in optical waveguides and was awarded the Milton and Francis Clauser Doctoral Prize. During her graduate studies, she founded Caltech's Student Chapter of Optica.

Research and career

In 2008, Poon moved back to the University of Toronto, where she is now Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering. Her early postdoctoral research continued investigating waveguide resonators. While at Toronto, she built a research team focused on studying silicon-based integrated photonic technologies for applications in telecommunications. Her research group also focuses on neurotechnology, and investigate how integrated photonic devices can be used to develop new brain imaging techniques. Poon became an honorary professor at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the

in 2018. She is also principal investigator at the Neurotech Alliance and the Center for Advancing Neurotechnological Innovation to Application (CRANIA) at the University of Toronto.

Awards and honours

Poon was elected as a Fellow of Optica in 2018 "''for outstanding contributions to the research and development of silicon-based integrated optics, including microresonators, electro-optic modulators and integrated hybrid photonics".'' She is a Director-At-Large at Optica. She was awarded the University of Toronto's McCharles' Prize for Early Career Distinction in 2013, and named one of the world's Top 35 IT innovators under 35 by the MIT Technology Review in 2012. Poon is a two-time recipient of the IBM Faculty Award (2010, 2011), and also received the

Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation The Ministry of Research, Innovation and Science was a government ministry of the Province of Ontario. Founded in 2005, the ministry became part of the Ministry of Economic Development and Innovation in 2011. It intermittently became a separate mi ...

Award (2009) and a University Faculty Award from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (2008).

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Poon, Joyce Living people Women in optics University of Toronto alumni California Institute of Technology alumni Academic staff of the University of Toronto 21st-century women scientists 21st-century women engineers Fellows of Optica (society) Year of birth missing (living people) Max Planck Institute directors