December 20, 2021
Images of the Butterfly Nebula, taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. (NASA photos)
Dear members of the Hajim School community,
Did you happen to read Adam Frank’s recent musings on the sheer beauty of the Butterfly Nebula? If not, I encourage you to do so!
I can’t think of a better way to help us start thinking about submissions for our annual Art of Science Competition, which explores and illuminates the aesthetic beauty that results when science, art, and technology intersect.
Even something as grand and awe-inspiring as the Butterfly Nebula “is really no different from anything else we encounter in nature that makes us stop in our tracks with its beauty,” Adam writes. Whether peering through a microscope, telescope, or simply taking a look at everyday objects, we can find images that “lift us out of our day-to-day concerns and remind us that there is more.”
From January 1 through March 18, currently enrolled students, faculty, and staff can use this online form to submit photographs, illustrations, visualizations, renderings, or posters showing an artistic representation of science, technology, engineering, math, and sustainability themes. Creativity and uniqueness are favored in the judging, as well as the ability of artists to convey the meaning of their work in terms understandable to a general audience.
Entries should be high resolution jpegs (300 dpi, at least 3,000 pixels wide on the longest edge). Cash prizes of $1,000, $500, and $250 will be awarded to winning student entries. All other entries will be eligible for a People’s Choice Award of $250. For inquiries, contact artofsciencecontest@gmail.com.
Take advantage of our winter break to start planning your entry. Let’s see if we can surpass last year’s total of 48 submissions! Click here to learn about last year’s winning entries.
NEW OPTICS PHD FELLOWSHIPS
Optics PhD graduates are in strong demand to develop the next generation of optics- and photonics-related commercial, medical, and defense technologies and to meet the growing need for optics teachers and researchers at top universities.
And there is no better place to receive this training than The Institute of Optics, which is expanding its recruitment of PhD candidates thanks to a $900,000 U. S. Department of Education award.
The GAANN (Graduate Assistance in Areas of National Need) award will pay for six PhD fellowships, at least half of which will be awarded to students from underrepresented groups.
Students interested in applying can contact Kai Davies at kai.davies@rochester.edu. Applications for entrance in the Fall of 2022 are due by January 15, 2022. Instructions and details are available on The Institute of Optics website.
This is an exciting award. Congratulations to PI Tom Brown, interim director of the Institute, and co-PI Jennifer Kruschwitz and Gary Wicks who will administer the program. Thanks to Cindy Gary, our assistant dean for grants and contracts, and Institute staff members Lori Russell, Tal Haring, and Kai Davies who contributed to our successful application for this award.
RESEARCH NEWS
Photo by J. Adam Fenster/University of Rochester
By merging two or more sources of light, interferometers create interference patterns that can provide remarkably detailed information about everything they illuminate, from a tiny flaw on a mirror, to the dispersion of pollutants in the atmosphere, to gravitational patterns in far reaches of the Universe.
“If you want to measure something with very high precision, you almost always use an optical interferometer, because light makes for a very precise ruler,” says Jaime Cardenas, assistant professor of optics.
Now, the Cardenas Lab for Nanoscale and Integrated Photonics has created a way to make these optical workhorses even more useful and sensitive. Meiting Song, a PhD student, has for the first time packaged an experimental way of amplifying interferometric signals—without a corresponding increase in extraneous, unwanted input, or “noise”—on a 2 mm by 2 mm integrated photonic chip. The breakthrough is described in Nature Communications.
Next steps will include adapting the device for coherent communications and quantum applications using squeezed or entangled photons to enable devices such as quantum gyroscopes. Learn more.
Left to right, Andrew Berger, Duncan Moore, Rick Plympton, and David Williams.
CONGRATULATIONS TO . . .
Two newly selected Fellows of Optica, formerly OSA.
Andrew Berger, professor of optics, is being recognized for “significant advances in using intrinsic optical contrast mechanisms to analyze untreated cells and tissues, either in living subjects or in the laboratory.” Those contrast mechanisms include Raman spectroscopy, in which narrowband lasers scatter light from molecules, revealing detailed information about chemical concentrations. Andrew also uses angular scattering of light from single cells to detect changes or differences in the size of the cells’ organelles.
Rick Plympton ’87 ’99 (MBA), now CEO of Optimax Systems Inc., is being recognized for “innovative and outstanding business leadership and service to the Society.” Rick, who earned his BS at the Institute of Optics, is heavily involved in workforce development efforts in the region and supports the optics industry. For example, he is a board member of the Optica Foundation, chair of the Finger Lakes Workforce Investment Board and FAME Student Scholarship Committee, and a coach for University of Rochester New Ventures Graduate Studies. Rick is also a former valued member of our Hajim Dean’s Visiting Committee.
Two newly elected Fellows of the National Academy of Inventors.
Duncan Moore ’74 (PhD), the Rudolf and Hilda Kingslake Professor of Optical Engineering, is a pioneer in the development of gradient-index lenses. The company he founded, Gradient Lens Corp., continues to manufacture high-quality, low-cost Hawkeye borescopes. More recently, Duncan, who serves as vice provost for entrepreneurship and oversees the Ain Center for Entrepreneurship, has been developing a next-generation solar concentrator less than 3 mm thick that concentrates sunlight 500 times–at only a fraction of the cost of current photovoltaic cells.
David Williams, the William G. Allyn Professor of Medical Optics, widely regarded as one of the world’s leading experts in human vision, pioneered the use of adaptive optics to image individual retinal cells. The methods David’s group developed are used in many of the LASIK procedures conducted worldwide today. David and his collaborators are now exploring whether ganglion cells can be coaxed by genetically engineered viruses to take on the light detecting function of rods and cones destroyed by disease as way to potentially cure blindness.
These awards are a wonderful testament to the achievements of four remarkable individuals, and to the continued vitality of The Institute of Optics. Well done!
Congratulations as well to these faculty members who have received 2021 seed funding from the Del Monte Institute for Neuroscience, reflecting the close bonds between our Department of Biomedical Engineering and the Del Monte Institute.
- Edward Brown received a Schmitt Program in Integrative Neuroscience (SPIN) award to investigate “Interactions between microglial dynamics and the brain extracellular matrix.”
- James McGrath also received a SPIN award to help fund “Development of an APOE4 Homozygous Model of the Human Neurovascular Unit.”
- Edmund Lalor received a Pilot and Feasibility Award for “A comparative modeling approach to exploring speech processing in the human visual system.”
STUDENT ENTREPRENEURS
Three of our seniors are featured in an ‘In the Zone’ interview, hosted by the Barbara J. Burger iZone to highlight innovators and creators at our University. Francis Pellegrino and Heriniaina Rajaoberison of optics and Andrew Thankson of computer science describe the origins and growth of their company Advanced Growing Resources (AGR). The students have created a hand-held optical scanning device—Spectre—to assist growers and agronomists in the early detection of crop afflictions to facilitate targeted application of pesticides and fertilizers.
Have a safe and rewarding holiday season! The next issue of Hajim Highlights will be January 10.
Your dean,
Wendi Heinzelman
