Educated in Dublin Institute of Technology, Hoda graduated in 2008 with a BSc (Ord) in Industrial & Environmental Physics. Hoda was awarded the Joe Guy prize for the best final year project from School of Physics in DIT.

Following this, Hoda continued her studies in DIT and graduated BSc (Hons) Physics Technology in 2011. During her degree she was one of the 16 successful candidates who won three months scholarship under Science Foundation Ireland Ureka Site scheme  in 2009 in the Focas Institute at DIT. The experience entailed a 12 week research project, conducted in parallel with the postgraduate researchers, supported by a programme of technical tutorials and seminars, presentations in professional skills and a series of seminars in topical issues in science. Hoda undertook her project within the Centre for Industrial and Engineering Optics group in the area of the development of materials and devices for holographic applications. The title of her project in Ureka was “Photopolymerisable nanocomposites for development of irreversible holographic humidity sensors”. The project was under the supervision of Dr.Izabela Naydenova and Dr Suzanne Martin.

She began her work as a postgraduate student in IEO in October 2011, supervised by Dr Suzanne Martin and Dr Izabela Naydenova and successfullytransferred to the PhD register here in October 2013.  

Research interest:

Holographic optical elements, solar collectors, on/off axis optical elements lenses, holographic solar application, low spatial frequency transmission gratings.

Current project:

Exploring the development of Holographic Optical Elements for application in solar collectors, the project is under the supervision of Dr Suzanne Martin and Dr.Izabela Naydenova.

Publications:

Naydenova I., Akbari H., Bade D., Dalton C., Yahya M., Ilyas M., and Pang V.T.C, Wei T., Martin S.,"Photopolymer holographic optical elements for application in solar energy concentrators”, published online in InTech, (2013).

Akbari H., Naydenova I., Kennedy M., Doran J., Martin S, “Design and Study of Acrylamide-based Photopolymer Holographic Optical Elements for Solar Application”, 2nd International Conference on Sustainable Energy Storage, 19^th-21^st of June 2013, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland, Available at: http://www.sesireland.ie/, (2013).

Hoda Akbari, Izabela Naydenova, and Suzanne Martin, "Using acrylamide-based photopolymers for fabrication of holographic optical elements in solar energy applications," Appl. Opt. 53, 1343-1353 (2014).

Poster and Oral presentations:

H.Akbari, M.Kennedy, J.Doran, I.Naydenova , S. Martin, “Advantages of the use of Holographic Optical Elements for solar concentrators”, Institute of Physics Ross medal competition, Royal College of Surgeon, Dublin, Ireland, 30^th March 2012.

Akbari H., Naydenova I., Kennedy M., Doran J., Martin S., “Holographic Optical Elements for application in solar collector”, 3^rd Generation PV cells, European PV Cluster 3 Meeting & Ephocell: Luminescent Solar Concentrators Workshop, Barcelona, Spain, 2^nd-3^rd October 2012.

H.Akbari, M.Kennedy, J.Doran, I.Naydenova, S. Martin, “Characterization of Holographic Optical Elements for solar collector application”, DIT Postgraduate Research Symposium, Dublin Institute of Technology, Dublin, Ireland, 2^nd November 2012.

Akbari H., Naydenova I., Martin S., “Fabrication of holographic optical focussing element for use in solar concentrator” Photonics Ireland, Queen’s University Belfast, Northern Ireland, 4^th- 6^th September 2013.

Akbari H., Naydenova I., Martin S., “Study of acrylamide based photopolymers Holographic Optical Elements at low spatial frequency for solar application”, 11th Mediterranean Workshop and Topical Meeting "Novel Optical Materials and Applications", Cetraro, Italy, 10^th-15^th June 2013.

Akbari H., Naydenova I., Kennedy M., Doran J., Martin S, “Design and Study of Acrylamide-based Photopolymer Holographic Optical Elements for Solar Application”, 2nd International Conference on Sustainable Energy Storage, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland, Available at: http://www.sesireland.ie/, 19^th-21^st of June 2013.

Akbari H., Naydenova I., Martin S., “Characterization of a holographic structure with an increased angular and wavelength range of operation for application in solar collectors’’, COST MEETING, Advances in Optofluidics: Integration of optical control and photonics with microfluidics, Dublin Institute of Technology, Ireland, 24^th-25^th April 2014.

Akbari H., Naydenova I., Martin S. “Characterization of a holographic structure with an increased angular and wavelength range of operation for application in solar collectors”, II International Conference on Applications of Optics and Photonics , Aveiro, Portugal, 26^th-30^th May 2014.