[Biography, english version]

Biography:

Dr. Walter D. Furlan obtained his PhD in Physics from the National University of La Plata (Argentina) in 1988. He has been Professor of Optics at the University of Valencia (Spain) since 2010. His research covers the field of Optics, initially focusing on phase-space formalisms and later on the design and applications of diffractive optical elements with aperiodic geometries. He is currently co-director of the Diffractive Optics Group, where research mainly focuses on the design of structured diffractive lenses and their applications in optical trapping and ophthalmology.

General indicators of scientific production quality
Number of research six-year periods (sexenios): 6
PhD theses supervised in the last 10 years: 9
h-index: 24

Books and book chapters

• Optical and Optometric Instruments: Theory and Practice (UV-Materials, 1998).

• Foundations of Optometry. Ocular Refraction (UV-Materials, 2009, 2nd ed.).

• “Basic Ophthalmic Instruments” in the book Handbook of Visual Optics (Taylor and Francis Books Inc., ed. Pablo Artal, 2017).

Projects and contracts
Participation in more than fifteen competitive projects at both regional and national levels, serving as principal investigator in most of them.
Responsible for more than ten contracts with companies in R&D projects related to his area of expertise.

Patents
Co-author of 5 national patents, 2 of them with international extension.

Academic and administrative service

• Member of the Doctoral Committee of the program “Advanced Optometry and Vision Science,” University of Valencia (2009–present).

• Secretary of the Department of Optics, University of Valencia (2000–2006).

• Vice-Dean of the Faculty of Physics, University of Valencia (2010–2012).

• Director of the Official Master’s Degree in “Advanced Optometry and Vision Science,” University of Valencia (2019–2024).

Other activities

• Member of the Editorial Board of the journal Clinical Optometry (DovePress).

• Member of the Editorial Board of the journal Photonics (MDPI).

I have worked as a university professor since completing my degree (1988), and I have done so at several universities: the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (1988–89), the Universitat Politècnica de València (1989–1991), and the Universitat Jaume I (for a few months in 1991). In November 1991 I joined the Universitat de València as an LRU Assistant Professor. In 1996 I obtained a position as Associate Professor, which became a Full Professor (Catedrático de Universidad) position in 2011. The Ministry has recognized six teaching periods (five-year terms) and five research periods (six-year terms).

Over my 37 years of teaching, I have taught a wide range of subjects (general physics, general optics, laboratory courses, quantum optics, and nonlinear optics), delivering nearly 5,000 hours of classes. Particularly noteworthy is my continuous teaching activity in quantum optics since 1992 and in nonlinear optics since 1997. In this context, I have supervised or co-supervised a total of seven PhD theses, twelve master’s theses or third-cycle research projects, as well as twenty one undergraduate theses.

In research, I have worked in the fields of quantum optics and nonlinear optics: laser physics (since 1988), spatiotemporal dynamics of optical systems (since 1995), including experimental research (since 2003), quantum fluctuations in nonlinear cavities (since 2005), and the study of quantum walks (since 2003). As a result of these activities I have published more than a hundred scientific publications, 95 in JCR journals.

SCI publications (in Q1): 124 (55); citations / h-index (Scopus, Jan. 16th, 2023): 3162 / 32.

He received the BSc and PhD degrees in Physics from the Universitat de Val.ncia in 1990 and 1996, respectively. In 1997 he obtained the Extraordinary Doctorate Award at this University, where he is currently a Full Professor in Optics.

He is co-director of the 3D Image and Display Laboratory since its creation in 1999. This research group (https://www.uv.es/imaging3/) has extensive experience in the development of 3D optical inspection techniques for biomedical applications. From this leading position, he has conducted a large number of research projects in the areas of optical diffraction, integral/plenoptic imaging techniques and high resolution 3D optical microscopy. Currently, he maintains a stable collaboration with different foreign groups; among others, he fluently collaborates with the University of Connecticut (USA), the University of Memphis (USA), the Universidad Nacional de Colombia, the Universitatea Politehnica din Bucureşti (Romania), the Universitatea din Bucureşti (Romania), the Dongseo University (South Korea), the Hankyong National University (South Korea), the Kwangwoon University (South Korea), the National Chiao-Tung University (Taiwan) and the Nanyang Technological University of Singapore.

He has published more than 200 scientific contributions (more than 120 scientific articles in journals of international impact) in all these topics, in addition to 5 chapters in technical books. These include several invited contributions, as the three guest articles in Proceedings of the IEEE (ranked 1st in the Electrical Engineering category of the Journal Citation Reports), an invited article in Progress in Optics, one article in the special issue "Optics in 2011" (which includes the 50 most interesting contributions in Optics each year, according to the editor) of the journal Optics and Photonics News, one invited contribution in this same journal, and 4 publications in SPIE Newsroom. Currently, he is also editor of the Journal of Information and Communication Convergence Engineering published by the Korea Institute of Information and Communication Engineering. In 2014, 2015 and 2019 he was awarded the Fumio Okano Best 3D Paper Award sponsored by the Japan Broadcasting Company (Nippon Hōsō Kyōkai, NHK). He has published around 80 contributions in conferences (about 50 invited presentations), sponsored by the most prestigious scientific societies in his area, such as the Optical Society of America (OSA), the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), the Society of Photo- Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE), the International Commission for Optics (ICO), the European Optical Society (EOS) or the Korean Information Display Society (KIDS).

He has been a member of the Organizing Committee of both local scientific conferences and international congresses. In particular, he was co-organizer of the prestigious Focus on Microscopy symposium in 2007, and since then he has been a member of the Scientific Committee of this annual international meeting.

He has raised more than €3,500,000 in funding for research, either as a principal investigator or as a member of the research teams. He is co-inventor of 17 patents (7 international and 10 national). Among them, 14 are related to acquisition and display of 3D images. He is a Founding Associate of DOITPLENOPTIC S.L., a spin-off company from the Universitat de València, which currently exploits one of these patents. Two other patents are currently in process of being licensed/exploited by companies in both EU and USA.

He has supervised 13 PhD theses (2 of them obtained the Extraordinary Doctorate Award), 10 Master theses (or equivalent), and the works developed during the stay of numerous visiting researchers and students. A good number of these students eventually obtained permanent positions in national or foreign universities/institutions/companies (e.g., in Spain, the Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, the Universitat Jaume I or Indra Sistemas S.A., and abroad, the European Patent Office in Germany or the University of Memphis in USA).

Enrique Silvestre received the B.Sc. degree in Physics from the University of Valencia (1986), and the Ph.D. degree in Physics from the University of Valencia (1999), with Extraordinary Award. He is currently Full Professor of Optics in the Department of Optics and Optometry and Vision Sciences, and member of the Institute of Materials Science of the University of Valencia. He began his research activity in Optics and Photonics in 1995. In a postdoctoral stay (1999–2000), he was at the Department of Physics, University of Bath, U.K.

He has published 69 articles in indexed journals (46 in the first quartile of their respective categories), with 2794 citations and a h-index of 25 (WoS Core Collection).

His main research interests are focused in the field of waveguide theory and in the modeling and design of waveguides and fiber optics — in particular, photonic crystal fibers —, fiber lasers, optical microresonators, nonlinear effects in guiding systems, and optical coherence.

[Biography, english version]