Newly Elected EOS Board Members

Juan Diego Ania Castañón is 52 years old. He received his BSc and MSc in Physics from Universidad Complutense de Madrid, and his PhD from Universidad de Oviedo, in Spain. 

He is currently a Full Professor and coordinator of the Nanoscale and Nonlinear Guided Optics group at Institute of Optics, CSIC. Previously he served two terms (for a total of 9 years) as Director of Institute of Optics, as well as two terms as Director of CSIC's Centre of Physics. His main research interests fall within the field of Non-linear Optics, where he has made relevant contributions to the field of fiber lasers (e.g. proposing and demonstrating the concept of ultralong fiber lasers) distributed amplification and distributed fiber sensing. He is the co-founder of FOCUS S.L. (now part of APL Photonics), a fiber sensing company. He has been a member of the Editorial Board of several journals, including JEOS, as well as member of the scientific committees of multiple leading international conferences.

Professor Ania is a firm believer on the importance of a strong EOS capable of supporting, fostering and furthering optics and photonics research and education, as well as coordinating National Societies in joint pan-European and international initiatives.

Paolo Biagioni was born in Milano, Italy, in 1978, and he received both his MS Degree in Engineering and his PhD in Physics from Politecnico di Milano, where he is currently Associate Professor. Before starting his professorship, he was a Humboldt Fellow at the University of Würzburg, Germany. His research interests are in plasmonics and nano-optics and he has been the supervisor of more than 30 among undergraduate students, graduate students, and postdoctoral fellows. He is also a Project Manager by the Smart Eyewear Lab, a joint research platform between Politecnico di Milano and EssilorLuxottica. He was a member of the SIOF Board from 2017 to 2020, President of SIOF in 2021-2022, and he is currently a member of the EOS Board. 

Paolo Biagioni values diversity, inclusion, and collaboration. He considers being a member of the EOS Board a duty that requires involvement and strong engagement. He believes that EOS can play a pivotal role in strengthening the European community of scientists working in the fields of optics and photonics. To this aim, he endorses the creation of initiatives aimed at establishing closer ties between EOS and the National Societies.

Ana Gebejes, Ph.D. is an interdisciplinary researcher and educator, with passion for applied photonics, sharing knowledge, and space exploration. Ana holds a PhD in Science, Technology and Computing, 4 master’s degrees (engineering, optics, color/vision, computer science), 15 years of university level teaching experience, 4 years of project management, and 2.5 years of IT industry experience.

Recently, Ana has started a university lectureship position in information and communication technology at the University of Eastern Finland’s School of Computing. Ana’s research focuses on developing sensory technology and computational spectral imaging tools for microplastic detection in water. Ana served as Head of Projects at Photonics Finland growing the photonics community and industry in Finland and as part of that work has initiated many activates among them also support for women in photonics. At EOS Ana first got involved in supporting students as the president of the EOS–Finnish Student Club and continued as their mentor. At EOS board Ana has served four years, two of which in the executive role of EOS Secretary.

Ana will continue bringing to EOS her expertise, diversity, and network to drive the future growth of the community.

Emilija Petronijevic studied Physical Electronics at the University of Belgrade (Serbia), and graduated as the best student of generation in 2014. She then did PhD at La Sapienza University of Rome, under the supervision of Prof. Sibilia, and graduated with honors in 2018. Starting from theoretical aspects and numerical design of light-matter interaction at the nanoscale, Emilija later moved to experiments during the research period in the laboratories of Prof. Belardini and Prof. Valev. Nowadays, at Sapienza (Rome, Italy) she investigates chiro-optical effects in nanostructures, especially in terms of photo-thermal hyperspectral characterization. 

She has co-authored 44 impactful publications and holds National Scientific qualification as associate professor in the Italian higher education. Since 2022, she is a Steering Committee member of Plasmonica, the Plasmonics and Nano-Optics Working group within the Italian Society of Optics and Photonics. 

Emilija strongly believes in European values and has greatly benefited from the EOS mission since she was a student. Now, at 36, besides chiro-optical research, teaching and mentorship, Emilija is dedicated to boost internationalization, improve science communication and decrease the gender gap in careers in optics. If elected, she will work on these aspects within EOS, and on strenghtening international collaboration with other societies. 

Nathalie Westbrook is currently professor at Institut d’Optique in Palaiseau, France and head of the Biophotonics group at Laboratoire Charles Fabry. 

She was born in 1965, graduated as an engineer from Institut d’Optique in 1986 and received a PhD in physics from Université Paris-Sud in 1989. After a postdoc at NIST in Gaithersburg, USA, she was recruited in 1991 as assistant professor at Institut d’Optique to start the new Atom Optics group with Alain Aspect. Since 2000, she changed for biomedical applications of Optics. She is much involved in teaching optics and helping students with their career path in connection with industry.

She is involved in SFO, the French Optical Society, board member for 8 years and currently co-chairing the Women in Optics committee, organizing plenary sessions, mentoring activities for young researchers and animating round tables on women in science both in Industry and academia.

She has been a member of the EOS Early Career Women award since 2023. She was elected an ICO vice president in oct 2021 and renewed in oct 2024. She is chair of the ICO/ICTP Gallieno Denardo award promoting young researchers from developing countries, and a member of the ICO Prize committee.