Ulrike K. Woggon

Institute of Optics and Atomic Physics, Technical University Berlin, Germany
OSA member since: 2000
OSA Fellow since: 2010

Professional/Personal Highlights:

Ulrike Woggon studied Physics at the Friedrich-Schiller University Jena and the Humboldt-University in Berlin, Germany. In 1985 she received her PhD in Experimental Physics from the Humboldt-University in Berlin. During this time, her two sons were born in 1980 and 1985. In 1992 she was awarded with a grant for habilitation by the German National Science Foundation (DFG) and went to the group of Prof. Klingshirn were she conducted research on semiconductor quantum dots using various methods of ultrafast laser spectroscopy and nonlinear optics. In 1995 she got the habilitation from the University of Kaiserslautern with a thesis on "Optical Properties of Semiconductor Quantum Dots" which has been published as a monograph in Springer Tracts in Modern Physics in 1996. From 1993 to 1997 she was in charge of a research group on optical spectroscopy of II-VI quantum dots at the Institute of Applied Physics at the University of Karlsruhe. In 1997 she became a full-time Professor at the Department of Physics in Dortmund, heading a group of about 10 members working on problems of quantum coherence in semiconductor nanostructures, photonic structures and microsphere cavities, single-dot spectroscopy at nanocrystals and quantum dots and quantum-dot based devices.

From 2001 to 2007 she was the coordinator of a topical PhD-program "Materials and Concepts for Quantum Information Processing", funded by the DFG at the departments of Physics and Computer Sciences at the University of Dortmund. In 2008, she became a Professor at the Institute of Optics and Atomics Physics of the Technical University Berlin (TU). Currently, she is elected by the members of TU Berlin as the 1st Vice President, responsible for matters of research and appointments.

Ulrike Woggon has published more than 190 peer-reviewed journal papers and several book chapters. Her current research interests are focused on ultrafast spectroscopy of semiconductor quantum dots, on nanophotonics, in particular semiconductor nanostructures of mixed 0D-2D dimensionality, and nanoplasmonics with hybrid materials.

Ulrike Woggon is a member and Fellow of the Optical Society of America (OSA), a member of the Material Research Society (MRS), and the German Physical Society (DPG). For OSA she was one of the Program Chairs of the International Quantum Electronics Conference (IQEC), San Francisco 2004 and served several times as committee member in the QELS subcommittee "Nanooptics and Nanoplasmonics" in 2000 (San Francisco), 2001 (Baltimore), 2006 (Long Beach), and 2008 (San Jose).

What is your advice for balancing one's professional and personal life?

• Do not try to reach all goals you are striving for within the first decade of your professional life;
• Set priorities; consider the things that make you the most happy and satisfied and guarantee that you have time for them;
• Have friends who share thoughts and opinions with you;
• Teach your children how to care for themselves as early as possible;
• Give a smile to somebody daily and develop a good humor;
• Learn to say "no" and ask yourself whether the task is worth the time spent;
• Learn to delegate tasks;
• Accept that you are not perfect, and you cannot please everyone!

Do you have suggestions for how female scientists support each other's careers and development?

• Create a corporate culture in the team you are supervising; a culture of encouragement and respect of diversity with mutual support and responsibility;
• Organize a dialogue and exchange experience between role models of different generations. For example, a senior female scientists should not expect that every young female scientist must experience the same difficulties that they have themselves gone through; a junior female scientists should be aware that the older generation of female colleagues often did not reach the top positions since discrimination was a reality in their careers;
• Funding agencies, appointment committees, etc. should consider that temporary disruptions in careers because of child care have a very positive impact on social competence, self-confidence and organizational skills and they should actively promote patch work careers.

Link for more information:

http://www.ioap.tu-berlin.de/menue/arbeitsgruppen/

Contact me:

ulrike.woggon@tu-berlin.de

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