Sydney Photonics Industry Network

Founded by Dr. Katie Chong and Dr. Sarah Lau in 2021, the Sydney Photonics Industry Network (SPIN) is a community-driven initiative committed to connecting professionals, researchers, and enthusiasts within Australia’s Optics and Photonics industry, with a primary focus on Sydney. Our mission is to create a collaborative ecosystem that stimulates innovation, facilitates knowledge exchange, and supports career development for individuals within the photonics sector.

Katie Chong, PhD

Dr. Katie Chong has over 10 years experience in the Optics and Photonics field with a research background in Nanophotonics. Katie has worked across R&D, Advanced Manufacturing and Project Management in some of the largest photonics companies in Sydney as an optical engineer and technical project manager. Katie is passionate in bringing together the photonics community locally and internationally. Locally, Katie was the OSA student chapter treasurer and SPIE student chapter president at the Australian National University prior to starting SPIN. Internationally, Katie has been a member of several SPIE governance and conference committees since 2018.

Katie completed her BSc(Hons) in Physics from the University of Otago in 2012, followed by a PhD in Nanophotonics at the Australian National University in 2017. Katie is currently a Program Manager at Q-CTRL.

W. Y. Sarah Lau, PhD

Dr. W. Y. Sarah Lau is passionate about seeing research inform and drive new and impactful technologies. She completed her doctorate in Quantum Optics at the University of Queensland, in collaboration with the Australian National University. She has worked as an R&D optics engineer at Finisar Australia, where she gained experience in advanced manufacturing and delivering a first-to-product to customers.

Recently she has taken up a position at CSIRO with their ‘Impossible Without You’ campaign with ambitions to combine her passion of translating research out of the lab with frontier quantum technologies research. She previously trained and briefly worked as a high school teacher and has a particular soft-spot for engaging underrepresented groups in STEM, especially early on in their education.