Dr. Matthew T. Posner

Matthew Posner is Director of workforce and photonics education at Optonique, the optics and photonics industry cluster in Quebec province, Canada. Previously, he was a Process Scientist at Excelitas Technologies specialising in diffusion, oxidation and chemical vapour deposition in silicon devices. He obtained an MEng in electronics engineering from the University of Southampton in 2013 and a PhD from the Optoelectronics Research Centre,University of Southampton in 2017.

Matthew’s doctoral research was in the subject area of photonic integrated circuits and planar Bragg gratings for applications in quantum science and sensing. His research experience is in integrated waveguide design, cleanroom fabrication and laser materials processing methods for fabrication, and device characterisation and packaging.

Matthew is an active science communicator and passionate about “getting the science out of the lab”. He is an early-career member of the OSA, SPIE, IEEE Photonics Society, through which he supports outreach education and public engagement activities. He has contributed to raising close to £40,000 for outreach education and public engagement programs. e has received awards for his endeavours, with the most notable featuring the 2017 University of Southampton Student Union’s Award for Best Contribution to a Society and the 2015 South East England Physics Network Public Engagement Innovation Award.

Matthew has been actively involved in the University of Southampton’s Optics and Photonics Society, which is comprised of an SPIE, OSA and IEEE Photonics Society student chapters. He served as chapter Student Mentor, President and 2 terms as Outreach Officer, where he directed the chapter’s Lightwave Roadshow, an outreach education and public engagement research programme.

Matthew is fluent in English and French, and proficient in Spanish and Mandarin. In his free time, Matthew cycles, climbs and goes mountaineering.