Speaker: Dr. Barmak Heshmat, MIT

Title: Imaging at relativistic speeds; the new space between sensing and imaging

Abstract:
How would you design a camera that has a shutter speed comparable to the speed of light? What would you do with such capability? Today, ultrafast imaging and time-of-flight imaging are at the core of autonomous navigation, depth mapping, and remote sensing applications. My talk will cover some breakthroughs in ultrafast imaging systems, components, and methodologies which will enable future applications. The developed techniques realize exotic imaging modalities that can scan through closed books page by page, see around the corner, and sense through thick tissue at infrared wavelength. The talk will further elaborate on redesigning optics in the time dimension and applying computational methods and machine learning to exploit the temporal and spatial information.

Researchers and students interested in computational imaging, THz sensing, LIDAR systems, augmented reality displays and the physics of light should find this talk exciting. 

Speaker Bio:
Barmak Heshmat is head of optics at Meta Augmented Reality and former research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He lead the ‘inverse problems in light propagation’ subgroup in the Camera Culture group where they developed tools and solutions for imaging beyond conventional limitations of optics using ultrafast optics, nano optics and computational methods. Barmak has given invited talks at six TEDx events, three NASA’s cross industry innovation summits, and numerous other venues and academic institutions.

Barmak received his Ph.D. (on optoelectronics and nanomaterials) at the University of Victoria in 2013 where he invented a THz receiver with an order of magnitude better sensitivity compared to the state of the art at the time. He is the  inventor of time-folded optics, time-encoded sub-diffraction limit imaging, Tyndall windows, optical brush and many more devices, gadgets, and methods.He has published 22 journal papers and filed 15 patents. Some of these papers and inventions have been featured on MIT cover page, BBC, TechCrunch and many other media outlets. Barmak is also the cofounder of the 'Imaginarium of Technology' (iMT) which is a platform for envisioning engineering ideas and providing academic illustration services.