A word of caution

How could I say no, when students from this chapter asked me to be their "Faculty Advisor"? They just did not take 'no' for an answer! But at least I am not regretting it, and there is more than one reason for that.
First of all, I still feel like a student myself. I have only just graduated as a Ph.D. from the ORC at the University of Southampton. There I was once president of the largest OSA student chapter in the world, together with Rob Simpson, so I know it's worth running an active student chapter!

I am hoping that the knowledge I acquired in Southampton will somewhat justify my prestigious position here as Faculty Advisor. Though, however successful the chapter there was, the last thing I want to do is to clone it (it's your chapter, students!). Having seen the extreme enthousiasm of the students here, I think that's not going to be a problem at all. I'm honoured in fact to be so directly involved with this keen bunch of people. So, with this, I'm wishing the chapter a great future with lots of inspiring and rewarding activities.

Here's a bit more about myself:

I graduated as an Electrical Engineer from Ghent University, Belgium, after researching Raman amplification in optical networks at Ericsson AB and the Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, for my Master's thesis. During my time in Ghent, I was actively involved in the Students' Union for Civil Engineers. I then joined the ORC at the University of Southampton, where my main research activities were high speed optical networks and optical signal characterisation. I was again heavily involved in extra-curricular activities, such as the OSA student chapter, and was running the only UK university paragliding club. After completing my Ph.D. at the ORC, I have now joined CUDOS at the University of Sydney, to work on things like dispersion compensation for reconfigurable, high capacity optical networks.