Abstract : You are invited to join Dr. Matthew Delaney for a technical and career presentation exploring the opportunities and challenges of the photonics integrated ecosystem. In the first part of the talk, Dr. Delaney will present conducted at the University of Southampton to develop and deploy new phase change materials in novel devices to create reconfigurable photonic switches, now a hot topic with the AI/data center boom. By coating a multimodal interference device (MMI) with a phase change material (PCM), and writing different pixel patterns into the PCM, it is possible to change the wavefront of the light within the MMI, enabling a fine level of control. This can be used as the basis for arbitrary photonic routing, in a small footprint and low-power device. In the second part of the talk, Dr. Delaney will provide a broader overview of the status and challenges of the integrated photonics field based on insights from working with some of the largest companies in the world across the whole application space, as they race to bring novel solutions to market. Join the presenter to debate where the field is heading. Hopefully, this will be a more interactive session where we can discuss different ideas as a group. Co-sponsored by: McGill Optica Student Chapter Speaker(s): Dr. Matthew Delaney Room: MC603, 6th floor, Bldg: McConnell Engineering building, 3480 rue University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, H3A 0C3, Virtual: https://events.vtools.ieee.org/m/442904