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Invited Seminar at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland
Title: Navigating Governance Challenges in Academia: Addressing Increasing Hostility Towards Excellent Women in Leadership
Record breaking laser pulses
With an ultrafast 550-W average power thin disk laser oscillator we have set a new record.
A Canary for a Toxic Workplace in the Coal Mine of Swiss Academia
To secure a one-year extension beyond age 65 at ETH Zurich, I had to change departments—despite 31 years of distinguished service in the Physics Department. The "canary in the coal mine" metaphor resonates with me, as I seek to shed light on the toxic environments that drive exceptional women out of academia at alarming rates. Part of a growing number of women, I refused to conform to the unspoken rules of the in-group—a system that hinders diversity and stifles innovation.
High-sensitivity and high-resolution spectroscopy with dual-comb OPO
Our new open-access publication is available. In this article, we demonstrate a widely tunable dual-comb optical parametric oscillator in the mid-infrared, and combine it with an intra-cavity up-conversion detection scheme to obtain high-sensitivity and high-resolution spectroscopy measurements.
Highlighted as an Editor’s Pick
Our open-access paper entitled "THz-TDS with gigahertz Yb-based dual-comb lasers: noise analysis and mitigation strategies", published in Applied Optics, has been highlighted as an Editor's Pick.
Top Female Scientists for 2023
Ursula Keller is ranked 4 in Switzerland among Top Female Scientists for 2023
Toxic workplaces drive women away from STEM fields
Prof. Keller is increasingly concerned about “hostility” towards excellent women in leadership positions in STEMM (i.e. science, technology, engineering, mathematics and medicine) fields, which she sees as a key challenge for further progress in gender diversity. In this news item Prof. Keller summarizes her talk given first at CLEO USA 2023 as a plenary talk and more recently at an IEEE meeting in Italy.
Highlighted as an Editor’s Pick
Our manuscript “Ultrafast Yb:YAG laser oscillator with gigahertz repetition rate” has been selected as the Editor’s Pick in Optics Express.
Plenary talk at CLEO US 2023
Prof. Ursula Keller gives a plenary talk at CLEO US 2023 on Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI)
Electrons: collective or independent – that sometimes lies in the eye of the beholder
Absorption of light adds energy to a material. The electrons inside the material can react collectively or independently to that energy. Here, the dominant reaction pattern should not depend on perspective. However, in compound semiconductors, surprisingly, divergent responses are obtained depending on which atomic constituent is consulted. Knowledge of both perspectives is necessary to optimize new materials for applications in electronics and optoelectronics.