On April 11, 2025, the New Jersey/New York Metro/Philadelphia Section of The American Ceramic Society held its annual event in conjunction with the Materials Science and Engineering Department at Rutgers University and the Ceramic Association of New Jersey (CANJ). The event was the Malcolm G. McLaren Symposium. This annual event recognizes a distinguished member of the ceramics community. This year the awardee was M. John Matthewson, a professor at Rutgers University, who retired at the end of 2024. The focus of the symposium was on optical materials and John’s contributions to optical fiber communication. He concluded the symposium with his talk “35 years teaching at Rutgers: What did I learn?”
Our first speaker was Rutgers Professor Deirdre O’Carroll, in the Materials Science & Engineering Department. She is the Rutgers lead in an NSF ENGINES Program on Photonics, and she shared with us her talk “Photonics research and education in our region.”
Our second speaker was James Colaizzi, Ph.D., Advanced Placement Physics & Chemistry, The Edison Academy Magnet School, who worked with John Matthewson in the ‘90’s in the Fiber Optics Materials Research Program (FORMP) at Rutgers. He has been part of our outreach program to public schools in the area. He shared with us “Perspectives from a K-12 instructor: All I ever really needed to know about teaching I learned in engineering graduate school.”
Our third speaker (above) was Chris Rabii, Ph.D., CEO, Vivacity Infrastructure Group, who also was at Rutgers in the 90’s. He presented an industry perspective in his talk “From Glass to Gigabits: The Evolution of Optical Fiber Networks.”
All of the speakers, as well as a large number of alumni, came specifically to thank John for his outstanding teaching. Many noted his ability to explain thermodynamics and to inspire students to learn seemingly difficult subjects. The session concluded with John’s McLaren Lecture.
Attendees filled the auditorium to catch one last lecture from Professor Matthewson.
The Symposium was followed by a reception for students, alumni, faculty and attendees. Rutgers Professor Ashutosh Goel organized a poster competition for high school students. This program grew this year to include eight school districts represented by 39 students. Awards were given for the best poster presentations.
During the reception, Undergraduate Program Director Koray Akdogan, announced the Undergraduate Scholarships. Ahmad Safari, also a Rutgers professor, awarded the best undergraduate and graduate student posters.
The undergraduate awardees are joined by Professors Ahmad Safari, Lisa Klein and Deirdre O’Carroll.
The graduate awardees are joined by Professors Ahmad Safari, Lisa Klein, Deirdre O’Carroll and Amin Reihani.
