September 23, 2019

Dear members of the Hajim School community,

We received a big boost recently in our efforts to apply augmented and virtual reality to health care, education, and a range of other fields.

Mujdat Cetin, interim director of the Goergen Institute for Data Science and associate professor of electrical and computer engineering, received a $1.5 million grant from the National Science Foundation to train 62 PhD students in the skills they need to advance AR/VR technologies and also to help them gain an appreciation for the broader cultural and societal implications of doing so.

Typically, PhD students researching AR/VR “are educated only in the teaching practices of their own department or their faculty advisor,” Mujdat says. “But they never get perspectives on other aspects of AR/VR.” A computer science student trained in human-computer interfaces, for example, may not be able to make a meaningful contribution to a VR rehabilitation system due to insufficient exposure to the biomedical engineering and neuroscience aspects of the problem.

This grant will help address that with new courses giving trainees a broader perspective and a chance to work collaboratively on AR/VR projects with students from other disciplines. In addition, trainees will participate in internships at companies such as Facebook, Microsoft, Nvidia, and Vuzix, which have provided letters of support for the program.

This is a very exciting development. Congratulations to Mujdat;  to co-PIs Jannick Rolland, the Brian J. Thompson Professor of Optical Engineering; Michele Rucci, professor of brain and cognitive sciences; and Zhen Bai, assistant professor of computer science; and to Hajim faculty participants Zhiyao Duan, Chenliang Xu, Yuhao Zhu, Ross Maddox, and Andrew White. Read more here.

Congratulations as well to:

  • Tahereh Jabbari, a PhD student in the research group of Eby Friedman, distinguished professor of electrical and computer engineering. Tabareh has received an IEEE CSC Graduate Study Fellowship in Applied Superconductivity.
  • Scott Will, a PhD student in the research group of James Fienup, the Robert E. Hopkins Professor of Optics. Scott received a $500 travel grant to attend last week’s Optical Society (OSA) Frontiers in Optics (FiO) conference, where he was a finalist in the Emil Wolf Outstanding Student Paper Competition for “Understanding polarization aberrations in the LUVOIR coronagraph instrument.”

Speaking of the FiO conference, it is great to see photos and tweets at the conference website documenting the University of Rochester/Hajim School/Institute of Optics presence, including:

  • the standing-room only crowd for Donna Strickland ’89, who gave a talk about winning the Nobel Prize in Physics for the work she did on chirped pulse amplification while earning her PhD at The Institute of Optics. Just as during her visit here at commencement, there was no shortage of people having their photos taken with her!
  • a “full room” for Professor Bob Boyd’s talk “How light behaves when the refractive index vanishes.”
  • Govind Agrawal, the James C. Wyant Professor of Optics, receiving his Max Born Award and participating in a panel discussion on transitioning into careers in optics.
  • Senior scientist Jon Zuegel of the Laboratory for Laser Energetics giving a talk on an upcoming report identifying future opportunities for ultrafast laser science.
  • Cristina Canavesi ’12 (MS TEAM) ’14 PhD ’15 MBA, giving an invited talk on the Gabor domain optical coherence microscopy imaging technology that she and Jannick Rolland developed. This led to the launch of their startup company, LighTopTech.
  • 2019 OSA President Ursula Gibson officially passing the gavel to 2020 OSA President Stephen Fantone ’79 PhD. Steve, an Institute of Optics alumnus, is president and founder of Optikos Corporation, chair of our Dean’s Advisory Committee, and recipient of a Hajim School Distinguished Alumnus Award.  He is the 23rd president of the Optical Society (OSA) who has ties to the University of Rochester.

A reminder to students interested in studying abroad next spring: The deadline to apply is October 1. Read more here. Students have until November 1 to apply for $500 Hajim School International Experience Scholarships to help cover costs. Read more here.

Have a great week!

Your dean,
Wendi Heinzelman
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