The "Università Politecnica delle Marche" Student Chapter of the Optical Society of America (OSA) is the first Italian student chapter, established by PhD students at the departments of Electromagnetism and Bio-Engineering (DEB) and Department of Physics and Engineering of Materials and Environment (FIMET). The OSA is the major organization in US covering optics and optical communications. The Society has many thousands of members and serves this community not only by organizing conferences, meetings and exhibitions, but also by publishing journals and books. Standards established by the OSA help stimulate the further development of this increasingly important, scientifically rich field. Our student chapter has the following focal points.

• First and foremost, the chapter enhances the quality of optics student life through the promotion of student community, student education and industrial contact.

• Second, the chapter promotes optics within the university through undergraduate awareness, optics representation in student government and promotion of collaboration between departments.

• Third, the chapter acts to bring the university and industry together through education (i.e. seminars) and collaboration.

• Finally, the chapter participates in community outreach in the form of Youth Science education, community education (i.e. university tours or lectures) and promotes the optics programs at “Università Politecnica delle Marche” to the optics community at large.

Faculty of Engineering (photo of Luigi Sagone)