Biomedical Optics Lab

Congratulations to Jewel Ashbrook ’24, who has been named one of 20 Optica Women Scholars! This comes with a scholarship and a support network for early career women scientists in optics and photonics. Congratulations!

This program provides visibility, community, and resources for women in optics and photonics via financial support, professional development, and establishing a global network as they enter the field. The scholarship is awarded based on need, academic performance, and demonstrated potential.

https://www.optica.org/en-us/about/newsroom/news_releases/2023/april/20_exceptional_students_named_optica_foundation_op/

Congratulations to lab alumna Emma Nelson ’20 for earning a National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship. Emma is currently a Ph.D. student at the University of Colorado at Boulder, and she is working in the field of Materials Research and the Physics of Materials.

The NSF GRFP recognizes and supports outstanding graduate students in NSF-supported STEM disciplines who are pursuing research-based master’s and doctoral degrees at accredited US institutions. The purpose of the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) is to ensure the quality, vitality, and diversity of the scientific and engineering workforce of the United States. GRFP seeks to broaden participation in science and engineering of underrepresented groups, including women, minorities, persons with disabilities, and veterans. The five-year fellowship provides three years of financial support inclusive of an annual stipend of $37,000.

https://strobe.colorado.edu/news-events/awards/

Logan Tonini (’23) and Autumn Zhong (’24) presented their research at the undergraduate research symposium online on October 17, 2022 in Rochester, NY. The Symposium on Undergraduate Research is held in conjunction with the annual joint meeting of Optical (formerly the Optical Society (OSA)) and the Division of Laser Science of the American Physical Society (APS-DLS). Their poster was titled, “Multiphoton Detection of Long Wavelength Laser Pulses.”

More information about the symposium can be found here:
http://laser.physics.sunysb.edu/research-symposium/.

Autumn Zhong (’24) and Logan Tonini (’23) presented their research at the 2022 Summer Research Symposium. Their poster was titled, “Multiphoton Detection of Long Wavelength Laser Pulses.”

ROBERT K. GOULD PRIZE IN PHYSICS
Established in 1994 by friends and colleagues in honor of Robert K. Gould, professor of physics, 1968–1994. Awarded to the graduating senior whose senior work in physics best exemplifies the high standards for research set by Professor Gould.

The 2022 Robert K. Gould Prize in Physics was awarded to Sam Yurak for his outstanding laboratory work building a temporal focusing microscope, under the supervision of Assistant Professor of Physics Michael E. Durst. This sophisticated project required him to apply a wide range of knowledge in physics, including optics, lasers, and electricity and magnetism. He excelled in all aspects of this independent project, including building the apparatus, aligning laser beams, and acquiring and processing the data. Starting from a blank table, Sam built a microscope that can work in the infrared, which is a new wavelength regime for fluorescence microscopes.