Dr Kate Sugden

Phone number
+44 (0)121 204 3498

Email
k.sugden@aston.ac.uk

Room number
North Wing 313

Profile
I joined Aston University in 2004 as a Medici Fellow having spent seven years in industry and became a Senior Lecturer in 2008. I am currently the Undergraduate Programme Director for Electronic Engineering.

My main research interests are in fibre optic sensing, fibre Bragg gratings and fs materials processing.

After my PhD and a two year stint as a research fellow I worked for ADC in Australia for a year transferring fibre Bragg grating technology into a production environment. When I returned to the UK I worked as a director for two fibre optic companies, first for Oxford Fiber Optic Tools, and then we raised the Venture Capital funding to form a second company, Indigo Photonics, in 2001.

My teaching interests lie in the delivery of courses that holistically develop a broad range of engineering skills. Engineering is a multifaceted, doing subject, you can’t just read text books and expect to be a good engineer. My formal teaching is targeted at Foundation and First year level students. My courses are designed to give students experience of real engineering tasks and learn in a problem based way. I also supervise Final, Masters and PhD level research projects.

Qualifications & Education

• BSc (Hons) Physics, University of Birmingham, 1989

• MSc (distinction), St Andrews University, 1991

• PhD in Fabrication and Applications of Fibre Bragg Gratings, Aston University, 1996

Employment

• 2001 - 2003: Technical Director Indigo Photonics Ltd

• 1999 - 2001: Technical Director Oxford Fiber Optic Tools Ltd

• 1997 - 1998: Senior Physicist ADC Pty Ltd, Canberra, Australia

Teaching activity
SE0EEF: Electronic Engineering Foundations
EE1ESE: Electronic Systems Engineering
EE1EPE: Engineering Projects and Entrepreneurship

Research interests
Fibre Bragg gratings
Fibre optic sensing
Fs machining

Recent research funding
PhD CASE Award NPL (2008-2011)

PhD CASE Award Oxford Lasers (2006-2009)

Technology Programme INETEGRATED WING (2006-2009)

Technology Programme CONSTRUCT (Airbus, BAE Systems, Insensys, Deutsch, Aston University, Messier-Dowty, Ultra Electronics SCS, Ultra Electronics) (2006-2009)

Technology Programme Fs Machining FIMA (Oxford Lasers, Fiberlogix, Aston University) (2006-2009)

PhD CASE Award Avery Weigh-Tronix (2005-2008)

DTI LINK Programme ROADS (Sensa, BP, National Grid, Southampton University, Aston University) (2004-2008)

PhD Supervision
PhD projects I currently supervise:

• Janarthanan Rasakanthan – femtosecond inscription
• Graham Lee – femtosecond machining and sensing systems

Membership of Professional Bodies
IoP, IET, OSA

Selected publications

• J Rasakanthan, K Sugden and P H. Tomlins, "Processing and rendering of Fourier domain optical coherence tomography images at a line rate over 524 kHz using a graphics processing unit", J. Biomed. Opt. 16, 020505 (Feb 22, 2011); doi:10.1117/1.3548153,http://dx.doi.org/10.1117/1.3548153

• P H Tomlins, G N Smith, P D Woolliams, J Rasakanthan, and K Sugden, "Femtosecond laser micro-inscription of optical coherence tomography resolution test artifacts," Biomed. Opt. Express 2, 1319-1327 (2011)  http://www.opticsinfobase.org/boe/abstract.cfm?URI=boe-2-5-1319

• K Sugden, D J Webb, R P Reeves, Laboratory focused learning of core electronic engineering concepts in the first year of an honours degree programme, EE2010 – Inspiring the next generation of engineers, Aston University, UK, July 2010

• X Shu, K Sugden, K Byron, “Bragg-grating-based all-fiber distributed Gires-Tournois etalons”, Optics Letters,  v 28, n 11,  Jun 1, 2003, p 881-883X Shu, K Sugden, K Byron, “Bragg-grating-based all-fiber distributed Gires-Tournois etalons”, Optics Letters,  v 28, n 11,  Jun 1, 2003, p 881-883

• G Lloyd, L Everall, K Sugden,  I Bennion, “Resonant cavity time-division-multiplexed fiber Bragg grating sensor interrogator” IEEE Photonics Technology Letters,  v 16, n 10,  October, 2004, p 2323-2325

• In-fiber polymer–glass hybrid waveguide Bragg grating, Kaiming Zhou, Xianfeng Chen, Yicheng Lai, Kate Sugden, Lin Zhang, and Ian Bennion, Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics (CLEO), San Jose, California, May 4, 2008, Ultrafast Photonics III (CTuU)

• Fabrication of High Aspect Ratio microfluidic devices Using Direct FS Ablation, Graham Smith, Dimitris Karnakis, Martyn Knowles, Alan Ferguson, Ian Bennion, and Kate Sugden, Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics (CLEO), San Jose, California, May 4, 2008

• Y Lai, J Petrovic, T Butler, K Sugden, I Bennion, ‘Side-detection of out-coupled core light from a microfluidic fibre microslit’, Conf on Lasers and Electro-Optics (CLEO2008), San Jose, Californhia, May 2008, CFN4.