March 28, 2022

Thomas Brown, a Fellow of Optica and a Mercer Brugler Professor, is uniquely positioned to lead The Institute of Optics forward.

Dear members of the Hajim School Community,

I am pleased to announce that Tom Brown will be the director of The Institute of Optics through June 2024. In the short time since Tom began serving as interim director last July, he has:

• Engaged numerous alumni, friends, and organizations to support The Institute.
• Overseen strategic planning for The Institute.
• Started planning for The Institute’s 100-year anniversary in 2029.
• Presented a very successful Industrial Associate’s event.
• Developed the SPIE Graduate Fellowship.
• Received a GAANN grant to expand recruitment of underrepresented PhD students.

Tom has done all of that on top of the daily tasks associated with running The Institute. Since joining the faculty in 1987, Tom has been involved in every aspect of The Institute, from directing the Hopkins Center to enhancing The Institute’s academic programs. He also led the University’s participation in the AIM Photonics TAP (Testing, Assembly and Packaging) efforts.

“With the support of our faculty, staff, and alumni along with a wonderful worldwide community, we will continue to build and grow the Institute’s research and educational programs as well as outreach to industry,” Tom says. “This is an impactful time as we head into The Institute’s Centennial in 2029.”

It is clear we are in good hands with Tom at the helm!

This is a busy week for The Institute, which will host its spring Industrial Associate’s symposium this Wednesday through Saturday at the Hyatt Regency Rochester. These biannual meetings provide a great opportunity for The Institute and its industry partners to share ideas and updates, for companies and students to showcase their work, and for students to interview for internships and jobs. A highlight this week will be the official installation of Susana Marcos as the David R. Williams Director of the Center for Visual Science and Nicholas George Professor.

FUNDING FOR LLE

The Laboratory for Laser Energetics (LLE) is set to receive $83 million in federal funding for fiscal year 2022–a $1 million increase over fiscal year 2021 funding.

The fiscal year 2022 Omnibus Appropriations bill, which is expected to be signed by President Biden, also includes $580 million for the Inertial Confinement Fusion (ICF) program at the National Nuclear Security Administration. About 80 percent of ICF’s experiments are conducted at the LLE.

This is great news for all of us. University and Hajim School faculty and students benefit immensely from a multitude of collaborations with LLE. As University President Sarah Mangelsdorf notes, “this funding strengthens LLE’s significant contributions to national security, scientific education and leadership, and regional innovation and growth.”

We thank US senators Charles Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand and Congressman Joseph Morelle for their tremendous efforts and longstanding support. They have helped LLE remain the US Department of Energy’s largest university-based program in the nation and home to two of the largest and most capable lasers at any academic institution in the world.

CONGRATULATIONS TO . . .

• Astrid Müller, assistant professor of chemical engineering. Astrid was highlighted recently by the American Institute of Chemical Engineers’ Catalysis and Reaction Engineering Division as part of its #WomensHistoryMonth observance. Learn more. This is wonderful recognition for Astrid. She is doing cutting-edge research using pulsed laser methods to synthesize nanomaterials. And she has been a real champion of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion on behalf of the Department of Chemical Engineering.
• Yu Feng, a PhD student in the lab of Yuhao Zhu, assistant professor of computer science. Yu won the Best Paper Honorable Mention at IEEE VR 2022, the premier venue for augmented and virtual reality.  His paper on event-driven gaze tracking, jointly with Meta, showed for the first time how gaze tracking can be both extremely accurate and real-time by designing and running a tiny neural network inside an image sensor. A slightly extended version of the paper is here.

GRAND CHALLENGES SCHOLARS

Kareem Abdelmaqsoud, Amanda Adams, and Anis Idrizovic are among the 2022 class of Grand Challenges Scholars.

As part of our ongoing series on outstanding students, here is a first installment about this year’s graduating class of Grand Challenges Scholars. This is our fifth year of the GCS program, which invites undergraduates to address one of 14 Grand Challenges of the 21st century by demonstrating competencies in research, entrepreneurship, interdisciplinary studies, global experience, and service.

Our University–a Tier 1 research institution with strong liberal arts and entrepreneurial programs and a unique open curriculum–offers opportunities that are tailor made for students to excel in this program.

For example, Kareem Abdelmaqsoud ’22 of chemical engineering addressed the grand challenge of providing access to clean water. Kareem was a member of the EZ Water team that won the 2019 Forbes Entrepreneurial Competition and attended a Global Grand Challenges Summit in London. The team donated the winnings so wells for drinking water could be installed in remote villages of Pakistan’s Thar Desert. Kareem, who is from Egypt, began knocking on doors during his first year in search of opportunities to do hands-on research. Most recently he has been working in the lab of Andrew White, associate professor of chemical engineering, and interning with a California start-up company using machine learning for drug discovery–an area he plans to pursue as a PhD student. Learn more.

Amanda Adams ’22, a biomedical engineering major from Williamsburg, Mass., emerged from last year’s iGEM (International Genetically Engineered Machine) Competition with a newfound confidence and sense of purpose. “Working in that kind of student-led team, and getting hands-on experience in the lab, gave me a lot of confidence about going on to graduate school,” Amanda says. She was the point person for communicating what the team was doing through press releases and the team’s social media pages. Amanda also contributed to the wet lab part of the project. This qualified her as a Grand Challenges Scholar in advancing health informatics. She would like to do research and development in the pharmaceutical drug industry. “Doing communications for iGEM helped me realize I can also contribute in that way as well,” Amanda says. Learn more.

Anis Idrizovic ’22, an optical engineering major from Montenegro, has skillfully blended his interests in sustainability and optics through class projects, lab research, a DAAD-Rise fellowship, and an internship at Synopsis Optical Design Solutions, while addressing the grand challenge of engineering the tools of scientific discovery. Anis plans to pursue a PhD that will “take what I’ve done as an undergraduate– build upon the base I built in optical design, optical testing, optical fabrication, and a bit of biomedical optics—and take it to the next level.” Long term, he would like work in the optical industry at the forefront of research and development, tackling grand challenges, and “developing the tools of discovery I have been focusing on,” Anis says. Learn more.

SUSTAINABILITY SEMINAR

Marc Porosoff, assistant professor of chemical engineering, will present the next sustainability seminar, “Development of Catalysts for CO2 Hydrogenation to Chemicals and Fuels” this Wednesday, March 30, from 3:25 to 4:40 p.m. in Hutchison Hall, Room 473.

SUMMER FUNDING FOR UNDERGRADS

Undergraduates have until April 11 to apply for monetary support for various summer experiences through the Greene Center. Funding is available in these categories:

• Summer Internship Funding
• Creative Experiential Learning Funding

To learn more and to explore additional funding support, visit the Greene Center’s website.

GIFT TO BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERING

Arthur Ritter ‘68 MS ‘70 PhD has never forgotten the University fellowship that enabled him to finish his PhD after his advisor left for another school. He hopes his decision to endow $125,000 to our Department of Biomedical Engineering by establishing the Dr. Arthur Ritter BME Endowment “sends a good message to other alumni about the importance of giving forward.”  Arthur retired two years ago as the director of the biomedical engineering program at the Stevens Institute of Technology.

He has specified that the endowment be used at the discretion of the chairperson of biomedical engineering. “I truly believe that department chairs—especially since I was one for many years—know what’s best for their program,” Arthur says.

“This endowment will enable UR BME to achieve new heights in our educational programs and research enterprise and will provide perpetual support for our students and faculty,” says Diane Dalecki, the department chairperson and Kevin J. Parker Distinguished Professor in Biomedical Engineering. “Arthur Ritter has been a leader in the field of biomedical engineering, and we are truly honored that our UR BME department now holds an endowment in his name.”

Arthur’s gift will help BME continue to build upon its remarkable achievements. This is a great example of the impact that gifts from our alumni and friends can have in making our school and University ever better. Learn more about Arthur’s experiences as a student here and subsequent academic career.

Have a great week!

Your dean,
Wendi Heinzelman