USIL Summer Camp 2013

Prof. Hamaguchi has the habit of organizing student summer camps every year. The aim of these summer camps is to provide younger generation an opportunity to interact with the most distinguished personalities of Raman spectroscopy and present their work. The difference between regular conferences and this student summer camp is, here present students and aspiring students interact in a friendly manner by having a beer together and discussing their work in the form of a casual chat during friendly poster session. Ofcourse we always have big guys in this camp who visits our posters, discuss our work gives some friendly suggestions and also they share very beautiful stories to younger students which can motivate them to perceive science and love what they are doing. Most of the times these camps will be organized in some scenic place so that we always be fresh and energized. Apart from hearing to those lectures they make sure the venue can facilitate one or other group activity so that we can make friends during this camp easily. 

Prof.  Hamaguchi's vision is simple. Being a Raman spectroscopist he always asks students to open their chemical eyes to see the wonders of the world through the eyes of molecular spectroscopy. In order to open your chemical eyes or realize what is being taught to you during classroom sessions, he suggest one has to go to nature. According to him understanding the nature can broaden our thinking and we can love what we are doing. That is why he chooses scenic places as venues for summer camps. 

He also thinks Science go by mutual trust and good friendship. We can do better science by building good relations all around the globe. He asks students to interact more during these kind of camps so that they can make new connections which in turn can enable their opportunities to do better science. In order to encourage students to interact and make new friends he make sure in his summer camp he has at least couple of international students, professors all the time. 

This is my fifth time to attend his summer camp after joining USIL in 2008. It is always exciting for me to participate in his summer camp. 

This Summer camp is bit different from my earlier summer camps. This summer camp is aimed at attracting undergraduate students to research. It has become like lecture series. We started with history of raman spectroscopy, theory of raman scattering (KHD formula), instrumentation, vibrational assignments, bio applications. Personally I enjoyed first three talks  very much. The first talk was given by Kiefer Wolfgang. He told us the history of Raman spectroscopy. He acted as an editor in chief for the Journal of Raman Spectroscopy for about 9 years. He told very inspiring stories about Sir C. V. Raman and his personality and about the discovery of Raman scattering. He also told us how confident raman was about getting his Nobel Prize in the year 1930. He booked tickets in July for going to Sweden to receive Nobel Prize before the announcement of the prize itself. He also showed us some video interviews of Sir C. V Raman. Kiefer also spoke about his work. He told us how he  enjoys doing Raman spectroscopy, how he used to construct and control the spectrometers, lasers, oscilloscopes etc.. when he was a young researcher. He got retired now but still his passion for science has not died. He turned part of his home mini lab and he is still doing experiments. He has lasers, mini nitrogen plant, workshop etc..  He is definitely quite an inspiration to youngsters. 

After him Hamaguchi sensei gave a talk on KHD formula. I enjoyed his talk as usual. Hamaguchi sensei is nothing less to Prof. Keifer. After retirement from the University of Tokyo as a full time professor his thirst for research hasn't ended there. He accepted many national and international assignments. He is very active in research at the age of 65. He always comes up with one or the other new experiments to tea time discussions or under grad. class room etc... 

After seeing these kind of people I understood how a selfless human being, real scientist who has love and passion for what they do look like. 

Their message is quite simple; get infected by the virus called Raman spectroscopy and enjoy forever seeing the unseen through your work. :)

Here are some of the picture taken at the camp

We started for the camp

Organizers calling names to handover room keys

View from my room

Session is about to start

Prof. Kiefer Wolfgang

Dedication to WK by C V  Raman

WK during his post doc years

Prof. Hamaguchi giving lecture on KHD formula

poster session

Aspiring students interacting with old students

Casual chat over a beer with W. K

Hemanth explaining his work to new students

Prof. Saha  with ...

Prof. Shigeto and chunfu Chang (M2 student)

Prof. Saha, Prof. Shigeto and Jen-fang Hsu

fun time

Late night party in my room

card game (count number)

Morning break fast time

while Shimada san is relaxing

Prof. Saha

Prof. Saha and Hemanth

My room

Hotspring outside my room

Participants of USIL Summer Camp 2013