Prof Adrian Podoleanu’s Career Celebration conference – Canterbury 26-27 May 2022

 I think this kind of events are the main essence of NETLAS, because of the pandemic we couldn’t have much networking with our colleagues. However, this event was great to know a little bit more on what our peers are doing, we are in a more advanced stage than the previous Winter school. We were able to see the differences between our projects, find advantage of different swept source modalities, and discuss about research.

I had the chance to participate in the organisation of the CC22 conference, which turned out to be a very enriching experience! I started my contribution by designing the conference logo. We wanted something simple enough, conveying both the location of the event and the science behind it. I decided to a silhouette of the Canterbury cathedral and a doodled version of a retinal OCT image, which contributed to making Adrian’s work known internationally. During the event, I had the roles of photographer and community manager for the AOG’s Twitter page. In my pictures, I tried to give a sense of the vivid scientific networking that I was witnessing. After the second day of talks, I made sure to capture the emotional speeches during the conference dinner. Overall, I was amazed by the breadth of connections made by Adrian, and by his impact on the global photonics community. I made a little speech myself to thank the rest of the organising team. I shared how Adrian reminded me of those inventors you see in Disney movies, without the craziness; or perhaps with a different kind, one at the service of innovative ideas, some sort of “what if?” from which great science stems.

It gives me great pleasure to congratulate Adrian for his internationally recognised, major contributions to OCT. He has greatly improved the versatility and applicability of OCT generating superb 3D images of the interior eye and other medical imaging areas such as density. Indeed, there is interest to use OCT to detect bank note forgeries.

Adrian came to UOK in 1993 on a Tempus Fellowship from Universitatea Politehnica Bucuresti, Romania to undertake research in the field of optical science. He was welcomed to my Applied Optics Group to work as a research assistant which at that time was mainly working on Fibre Optic Sensors.

Examples of projects that Adrian was involved with are: 1) Channelled spectra for liquid refractometers and thin films 2) A high speed digital correlator with sub microsecond resolution and topology implemented in single mode fibre.

Around this time, I became aware of some very interesting research in Austria by Professors Adolf Fercher and Christoph Hitzenberger on imaging the eye in 3 dimensions. The instrumentation used was based on aspects of optical interferometric techniques well known to AOG. This background enabled me to obtain a grant from EPSRC on the new topic of OCT with the support of Prof Fred Fitzke at Moorfields Eye Hospital, London. The highly recommended scientist from NPL appointed to work on the grant turned out to be a disaster and could have stopped the OCT project! Fortunately, she decided to leave; clearly, I needed a replacement very quickly and took a gamble on Adrian, knowing of the contributions he had already made to AOG. The gamble paid off as Adrian achieved the main aims of the grant enabling us to make a successful application for a second grant to undertake further research into OCT. The first success was the realization of the first OCT system in the UK based on Coherence imaging using a Newton rings sampling function. It should be mentioned at that time instrumentation for rapid data generation and storing was not available. Three dimensional OCT images from retina and skin were achieved by incorporating an xyz scanner. Adrian introduced one of the most important concepts by incorporating a scanning laser ophthalmoscope.

Adrian introduced methods to increase the speed, resolution, and quality of the OCT images. He also instigated new applications, for example simultaneous En-Face imaging of two layers in the Human Retina. One disappointment was that we were unable to convince surgeons at the famous McIndoe Burns Unit in East Grinstead that OCT could image through a skin burn. Perhaps they will change their minds when they become aware of the vast improvements in OCT imaging.

In 2005, after my retirement, he was promoted to a full Professor and became head of AOG. From that moment all research at AOG was devoted to all aspects of OCT.

Adrian rapidly adjusted to being a group leader devoting himself totally to OCT and establishing a group that has a worldwide reputation for innovations in OCT both instrumentation theory and many applications where OCT could be exploited Adrian has a gregarious nature, is an excellent group leader and a thoughtful supervisor. His work has greatly enhanced the reputation of the University of Kent in the UK and abroad.