I was delighted to be invited to Chair this expert symposium in Delft on February 9th, a kind of retirement party for my good friend Albert, who was hanging up his Professor’s boots after over 20 years teaching at TU Delft, a leading European technical university with specialism in imaging and semiconductor technology research.
It really was a ‘who’s who’ of digital imaging, with several of the founding fathers of modern imaging technologies presenting, Albert included. The agenda also featured Prof Eric Fossum, Dr Cor Claes, and Prof Nobukazu Teranishi, all of whom have played a significant role in shaping imaging technologies over the last 40 years.
Other speakers were from the ‘up and coming’ angle with Perrine Batude, a senior researcher at CEA Leti presenting her latest work on 3D integrated stacking, and Xinyang Wang, CEO of GPixel and a former student of Albert’s. Last but not least was Prof Patrick Denny, a familiar face to AutoSens, having been involved in the discussions that sparked the idea for Sense Media itself, who gave a nice overview of the state of play in automotive imaging to a very interested audience of non-automotive specialists.
For me on a personal level, it was so nice to see many people I haven’t crossed paths with since my days running the London Image Sensors event, it was really great to catch up with those folks. And it was a great honour to moderate the days’ proceedings, which concluded with Albert’s review of his time and achievements at TU Delft, I think testament to his teaching it was noted that the vast majority of his post grad students are still working in imaging.
I’ve always said that Albert’s workshops set the benchmark – his challenging but good-humoured teaching style combined with super clear slides are the best I have seen in my nearly 20 years of organizing educational events. But Albert’s passion and technical knowledge is at the heart of the reputation he’s garnered in a sector full of high achievers.
Albert isn’t retiring completely, he’ll still run workshops for clients, and via CEI and other partners such as AutoSens, but mostly because imaging is his passion, his hobby as well as his profession. I’m sure the imaging community will continue to benefit from his insights and expertise for many years to come.
