July 31, 2017

Dear members of the Hajim School community,

Optics alumna Michelle Relin ’16 says it was a proud moment for her to return to the University of Rochester last spring as a recruiter for Edmund Optics, where she works as a sales engineer in its US Defense and Aerospace division. She credits Industrial Associates – comprised of nearly 40 optics companies that partner with The Institute for Optics – for helping her land an internship that led to her job offer at Edmund before her senior year even began. The annual three-day IA spring and fall meetings on campus are an excellent way for optics students to network and interview with representatives from such companies as Microsoft, Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, Optikos, and BAE Systems. That’s why Daniel Smith, undergraduate program director, urges incoming freshmen at the Institute to make a point of attending IA meetings as soon as possible. Click here to read the testimonials of other optics students who have landed jobs or internships through IA.

Former Buffalo Bills quarterback Jim Kelly will be keynote speaker for the dSports Summit, which is being hosted by UR Medicine at the Memorial Art Gallery, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. tomorrow, Aug. 1. Top experts in the field will describe how mindfulness, sleep, nutrition, and training factor into athletic performance at the highest levels. Engineering students and faculty will be especially interested in sessions on the wearable devices that are helping athletes learn more about their bodies and how to train them, and on the use of virtual and augmented reality to study sports performance and treatment of injuries. Both are areas where Hajim researchers might find opportunities to collaborate. Click here  to learn more and register.

Congratulations to Mark Buckley, assistant professor of biomedical engineering, who has received a five-year, $1.63 million NIH R01 grant for his project, “Modulation of Insertional Achilles Tendinopathy by Multiaxial Mechanical Strains.” This study aims to elucidate the patterns of mechanical strain (deformation) that cause and reverse IAT in vitro, and determine how to induce these strain patterns in vivo through exercise-based physical therapy. The findings could lead to effective, non-surgical therapies for IAT. Collaborators for this project include Alayna Loiselle (Orthopaedics and Center for Musculoskeletal Research), Michael Richards (Surgery), Sam Flemister and John Ketz (Orthopaedics), and Tongtong Wu (Biostatistics). Well done, Mark. This is a very impressive multidisciplinary team. And this is a well deserved award for an early career faculty member in a department that has done an outstanding job mentoring its junior faculty on grantsmanship.

Thanks to Steve Fantone ’79 (PhD) and Betsy Fantone for hosting a reception in Boston featuring P. Scott Carney, our new director for The Institute of Optics. More than 30 guests attended. Be sure to read Kerry Feltner’s outstanding profile of Scott in Rochester Business Journal. Click here and scroll to page 4.

Have a great week!

Your dean,
Wendi Heinzelman