Plenary Session

Biography

Dr. Mickey Batson joined IARPA in March 2024. In his current assignment as a Program Manager, Dr. Batson focuses on areas of scientific research that includes electromagnetics, ionosphere geophysics, ionosphere chemistry, and plasma physics. He is presently leading IARPA's efforts on the EQuAL-P program that aims to realize significant gains in the performance of electrically small antennas.

Prior to joining IARPA, Dr. Batson worked as a research engineer at the NSA Laboratory for Telecommunication Sciences from 2013 to 2024. While there, he investigated electromagnetic anomalies occurring within the ionosphere and researched and supported propagation modeling efforts for low frequencies.

Dr. Batson graduated from the Naval Postgraduate School with a doctorate in electrical engineering and a master's degree in communications engineering.

Abstract

By enabling the integration of millions of micro-scale optical components on compact millimeter-scale computer chips, silicon photonics is positioned to enable next-generation optical technologies that facilitate revolutionary advances for numerous fields spanning science and engineering. An emerging class of silicon-photonics systems is integrated optical phased arrays (OPAs), which enable manipulation and dynamic control of free-space light in a compact form factor, at low costs, and in a non-mechanical way. This talk will highlight our work on developing novel OPA-based platforms, devices, and systems that enable innovative chip-based solutions to high-impact problems in areas including LiDAR sensing for autonomous vehicles, augmented-reality displays, free-space optical communications, optical trapping for biophotonics, 3D printing, and trapped-ion quantum engineering.

Biography

Jelena Notaros is the Robert J. Shillman Career Development Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She received her Ph.D. and M.S. degrees from MIT in 2020 and 2017, respectively, and B.S. degree from the University of Colorado Boulder in 2015. Jelena was one of three Top DARPA Risers, a 2018 DARPA D60 Plenary Speaker, a 2023 NSF CAREER Award recipient, a 2021 Forbes 30 Under 30 Listee, a 2021 MIT Robert J. Shillman Career Development Chair recipient, a 2020 MIT RLE Early Career Development Award recipient, a 2015 MIT Herbert E. and Dorothy J. Grier Presidential Fellow, a 2015-2020 NSF Graduate Research Fellow, a 2024 OSA CLEO Highlighted Talk Award recipient, a 2019 OSA CLEO Chair's Pick Award recipient, a 2022 OSA APC Best Paper Award recipient, a 2022 OSA FiO Emil Wolf Best Paper Award Finalist, a 2014 IEEE Region 5 Paper Competition First Place recipient, a 2023 MIT Louis D. Smullin Award for Teaching Excellence recipient, a 2018 EECS Rising Star, a 2014 Sigma Xi Undergraduate Research Award recipient, and a 2015 CU Boulder Chancellor's Recognition Award recipient, among other honors.