Samuel Serna received the undergraduate degree in Physics Engineering from the National University of Colombia (Sede Medellin ), Medellín, Colombia, and a Double Master’s degree from the Friedrich-SchillerUniversity Jena, Germany, in photonics, and the Institut d’Optique Graduate School, Palaiseau Cedex, France, in optics, matter, and plasmas, (Erasmus Mundus Master program Optics in Science & Technology —OpSciTech). He received a grant from the French Ministry of Research to do his Ph.D. degree in a collaboration between the Centre for Nanoscience and Nanotechnology (C2N) and the Institute of Optics – Charles Fabry Laboratory. He obtained his Ph.D. degree in 12/2016 and his thesis was awarded the Physics of Waves and Matter department prize in the University of Paris-Saclay. He was the President of the OSA-SPIE student chapter in 2010 at the National University of Colombia (Sede Medellin ). He was also the President of the Student Chapter of Optics – Paris, Palaiseau Cedex, France. He is developing novel hybrid devices in silicon using photonic crystal waveguides and cavities and exploring methodologies to measure their nonlinear properties. Currently, he leads an international initiative between France (C2N) in Dr. Laurent Vivien's group and the USA (MIT) in Prof. Juejun Hu's group to develop chalcogenide hybrid waveguides for nonlinear integrated photonic applications.