More than 85 students receive education scholarship awards from SPIE

Top education scholarships awarded to students in fields across photonics, optics, imaging

07 July 2017

BELLINGHAM, Washington, USA , and CARDIFF, UK — SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics, recently announced the distribution of $298,000 in optics and photonics education scholarships to 88 outstanding SPIE Student Members, based on their potential contribution to optics and photonics, or related disciplines.

Through 2016, SPIE has distributed over $5 million dollars in education and travel scholarships. This ambitious effort reflects the Society’s commitment to education and to the next generation of optical scientists and engineers around the world. Individual awards range from $2,500 to $11,000.

Jeremy Bos

Jeremy Bos

SPIE Scholarship Committee Chair and Senior Member Jeremy Bos of Michigan Technological University offered his thanks to all students who applied and congratulations to 2017 recipients.

“Every year, we take on the process of selecting awardees from an incredible group of smart, energetic, talented students,” Bos said. “I want to thank the applicants, those who wrote helpful recommendations, and the members of the scholarship committee. I look forward to following the winners and all of our applicants as they contribute to the Society and to our field.”

Several students received named education scholarships supported all or in part by the society:

  • Logan Wright, a PhD candidate at Cornell University, was awarded the $11,000 D.J. Lovell Scholarship, the largest and most prestigious sponsored solely by SPIE. Wright hopes to develop new optical tools for science and provide fundamentally new ways of using light to understand complex systems across disciplines. His research focuses on the propagation of intense pulses of light in multimode optical fibers, and ultrafast fiber laser sources.
  • Travis Sawyer is a master’s student studying physics at the University of Cambridge, where he conducts research in hyperspectral imaging for biomedical. Sawyer was awarded the $10,000 John Kiel Scholarship. The award also recognizes his dedication to STEM outreach. Working with SPIE Student Chapters, Sawyer organizes and participates in dozens of events each year that reach thousands of people.
  • Meg Tidd has been awarded the 2017 Optical Design and Engineering Scholarship for her potential contributions to the field of optical design and engineering. Tidd recently graduated from the College of Optical Sciences at the University of Arizona. “With my years of professional experience with various optics manufacturers and optical software development, combined with the knowledge and insight I anticipate gaining from my new educational journey, I am motivated to ultimately offer the field of optics better tools for consulting and software,” said Tidd.
  • Brandon Born, a PhD candidate and sessional instructor at the University of British Columbia, is the recipient of the Teddi Laurin Scholarship. The $5,000 scholarship seeks to support students involved in photonics and bring greater awareness to the industry. His research at the Integrated Optics Laboratory focuses on creating a practical all‐optical switching device for fiber front‐end systems. He’s also involved with a collaboration on all‐optical photonic chip architectures at the University of Sydney.
  • Jiaojiao Ou, studying at the University of Texas at Austin, was awarded the BACUS Scholarship. This scholarship is awarded to a student in the field of microlithography with an emphasis on optical tooling and/or semiconductor manufacturing technologies. This scholarship is sponsored by BACUS, SPIE's Photomask International Technical Group.
  • The $5,000 SPIE Laser Technology, Engineering, and Applications Scholarship was awarded to Matthias Banet. Banet recently graduated with a BS in Physics from the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology. He is spending his summer modeling digital holography as a wavefront sensor in the presence of distributed‐volume atmospheric. Banet will enter the PhD program in Optical Sciences at the University of Rochester this fall.

In an award supported in part by SPIE, Charlotte Guthery of the Rochester Institute of Technology is the 2017-2018 recipient of the $20,000 SPIE Graduate Student Endowed Scholarship in Optical Sciences, part of the Friends of Tucson Optics (FoTO) Scholarship Program. The College of Optical Sciences at The University of Arizona awards the FoTO Graduate Student Scholarships competitively to promising incoming PhD applicants, providing base stipend and tuition for the first academic year. In addition to demonstrating academic excellence in optical sciences, recipients display commitment to scholarship, involvement in extracurricular activities, and interests beyond science and technology.

Also, Jonathan Papa of the University of Rochester has been awarded the 2017 Michael Kidger Memorial Scholarship in Optical Design. The scholarship is supported by the Michael Kidger Memorial Scholarship Fund in memory of Michael John Kidger, a well-respected educator, design software developer and member of the optical science and engineering community.

About SPIE

SPIE is the international society for optics and photonics, an educational not-for-profit organization founded in 1955 to advance light-based science, engineering, and technology. The Society serves nearly 264,000 constituents from approximately 166 countries, offering conferences and their published proceedings, continuing education, books, journals, and the SPIE Digital Library. In 2016, SPIE provided $4 million in support of education and outreach programs. www.spie.org

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