December 3, 2018

Dear members of the Hajim School community,

Congratulations to Robert Boyd, professor of optics, who has been named a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Bob has played a pioneering role in the development of the field of composite nonlinear optical materials (now known as metamaterials), whose properties can be tailored to perform specific tasks. His lab has used “twisted light” to increase the bit-carrying capacity of a photon. Currently he is exploring the use of epsilon-near-zero materials to create nonlinear photonic devices that could have game-changing implications: for instance, a solid-state system that could serve as a platform for all-optical computation and signal processing using only a few tens of photons. This is exciting research — and well-deserved recognition! Read more here.

Congratulations as well to:

Juniyali Nauriyal, an electrical and computer engineering PhD student in Jaime Cardenas’s lab (Institute of Optics), who is this year’s recipient of the Optical Society’s Harvey M. Pollicove Memorial Scholarship, awarded each year to a student pursuing a degree in the field of precision optics manufacturing. Juniyali is developing a novel way to connect an optical fiber to a photonic chip that avoids the high costs, delays, and unreliability of current methods.
Nikolas Angyal ’19 of chemical engineering and Bryce Ikeda ’19 of electrical and computer engineering, who received two of the highest awards for student athletes during the championship banquet at the NCAA Division III Soccer Final Four. Nikolas was presented with the Elite 90 award, which goes to the player at the finals site with the highest cumulative GPA. Nikolas’s GPA is 4.00. Bryce was named a First Team All-American by the United Soccer Coaches. Bryce is only the fifth Rochester men’s soccer player to be recognized as a First Team All-American. This is in addition to being named a Garnish Scholar this fall. Though the Yellowjackets came up short in their semifinal game against Tufts University, the team can be proud of its 16-3-2 record and making it to the Final Four for the first time.

I encourage students, faculty, and staff to start thinking now about entries for our annual Art of Science Competition. We had a record number of entries last year, and I am hoping for even more this year! New for this competition is an online submission form. There also will be a $100 People’s Choice award, in addition to judge’s prizes of $500, $300, and $100 for photographs, illustrations, visualizations, renderings, and posters that best illustrate themes of science, engineering, technology, math, and sustainability. Click here to see winning entries from last year.

The competition is open to the entire University. High resolution jpeg entries (300 dpi, at least 3,000 pixels wide) can be submitted anytime between now and March 18, 2019 at http://www.hajim.rochester.edu/art-of-science/. Sandra Turner, our former dean’s special assistant, did an outstanding job of organizing this competition before leaving the University. Thanks to Brian McIntyre, who has submitted some awesome images himself, for organizing the competition this year, with help from students Marcos dos Santos ’20 and Sabastian Abelezele ’20, both of mechanical engineering. Please contact Brian and his team at artofsciencecontest@gmail.com with any questions.

The Institute of Optics has forged a strong connection with the optics program at Monroe Community College as part of its outreach to encourage high school students to pursue careers in the field. Evidence of that was the visit to The Institute by more than 70 Avon, Hilton, and Greece school district students on Friday, in partnership with optics alumna Alexis Vogt ’01 (’07 PhD), the endowed chair and associate professor of optics at MCC. The visiting students attended a class taught by Andrew Berger and heard company presentations by Jay Eastman from Optel and Tom Battley from New York Photonics. Students Garrett Beals, Doran Teverovsky, Katie Dunn, Trevor Oloughlin, Demetrious Dowdell, Sabrina Villanueva, Chris Pressimone, Rob Moore, and Lyse Mugeni from The Institute and Patrick Stefano, Ethan Snell, and Kenyon Carson from MCC helped out with talks and demonstrations. This was the first such outreach event, explains Dustin Newman, The Institute’s undergraduate program coordinator. The plan is to hold one each semester, alternating between MCC and the Institute. And, of course, The Institute will continue to hold its annual summer Photon Camp for high school students as well.

In past Hajim Highlights we have mentioned how valuable it has been for our students to participate in the Industry Road Trips sponsored by the Gwen M. Greene Center for Career Education and Connections. The Silicon Valley trip, in particular, has been a great way for computer science and engineering students to visit not only industry giants like Google, Facebook, and Twitter, but smaller companies, many launched by Hajim alumni. The students get a feel for what it is like to work in the tech industry. They also participate in valuable networking sessions.

To expand this opportunity to all students, who pay their own airfare and lodging, University Advancement is collaborating with the Greene Center on a crowdfunding campaign. Donations will help students attend trips to Silicon Valley and San Francisco this coming January. Please click here to learn more and see a video.

Have a great week,

Your dean,
Wendi Heinzelman