College News

Congratulations to Joshua Follansbee on his selection to receive the Dr. Jack Slater Award funded by the Joint Directed Energy Transition Office (JDETO). The $10,000 award is granted annually to the highest scoring student focusing their research efforts on high energy lasers (HEL). Joshua is advised by Prof. Ron Driggers.

University College Cork in collaboration with Wyant College of Optical Sciences recently completed the Cork Summer School 2023: Extreme Nonlinear Optics in Solids. The school took place at University College Cork, Ireland from Aug. 13 - 18, 2023. The Cork Summer School was formally dedicated in memory of Prof. Stephan W. Koch.

Congratulations to Prof. Judy Su on her recognition as an Arizona Champion. Prof. Su will be recognized at the upcoming NAU vs. UArizona President's Tailgae and football game. Additionally, Prof. Su was recently featured by the Office for Research, Innovation & Impact's series, "Conversations with Women of Impact". Congratulations, Prof. Su!

Congratulations to PhD student, Gabe Richardson, for receiving the NASA Space Technology Graduate Research Opportunities (NSTGRO) Fellowship. Gabe was selected for his project, "Toward Universal Quantum Optimal Photonic Processing Using Quantum Computation." Gabe is advised by Prof. Saikat Guha, Director of the NSF-ERC Center for Quantum Networks. 

We are pleased to welcome Isabella Briant as a new Wyant College accountant. Find Isabella in Meinel 619 or call her up at 520-626-0432 to say hi!

Congratulations to Prof. Hong Hua who was recently inducted into the 2023 IEEE Visualization and Graphics Technical Community  (VGTC) Virtual Reality Academy. Hua was selected for pioneering research on optical display technologies for AR and VR, and collaborative AR and VR environments. 

Prof. Judy Su’s work into FLOWER (frequency locked optical whispering evanescent resonator) is unlocking new possibilities for early detection of ovarian cancer before symptoms have even presented—meaning that many women can begin to receive treatment before the cancer has become severe. In Su’s recent paper, “An Integrated Approach to Protein Discovery and Detection From Complex Biofluids” Prof. Su discusses how the technology can sample items from the vaginal environment (a tampon, even) to detect proximal sources for tumor detection.

NSF recently announced 54 teams chosen for the VITAL Prize Challenge Semi-Final Round, an initiative to support "teams developing novel learning technologies with entrepreneurial training, customer discovery support, seed funding and mentorship to build K-12 learning innovations for adoption nationwide." One team selected includes Ameé Hennig, Wyant College Media Content Manager, Prof. Allison Huff, Assistant Prof. at UArizona College of Medicine, and Vincent Hood, Illustrator and member of the Yavapai-Apache Nation.

Don't miss out on this opportunity to take the new OPTI 596: Computational Imaging and Machine Vision Seminar with Prof. Florian Willomitzer. Are you motivated to understand the basic principles of computational imaging and machine vision? Are you interested in learning more about the practical applications in topics such as industrial inspection, VR/AR/MR, robotics, medical imaging, remote sensing, automotive sensing, metrology, forensics, or cultural heritage preservation? Then this would be a great course for you!
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An article submitted by Associate Professor Mohammed Hassan was recently published by "The Conversation," an independent publisher of articles authored by academics for the general public. Titled, "The digital future may rely on ultrafast optical electronics and computers," the article focuses on his research into ultrafast optical switching. The article has been republished by The San Francisco Times and BusinessMirror.