BELLINGHAM, Washington – (BUSINESS WIRE) – Immediately SPIE, the Worldwide Society for Optics and Photonics, and Vanderbilt College introduced the institution of the SPIE School Fellowship in Optics and Photonics. The $ 500,000 present from the SPIE Endowment Matching Program is 100% matched by Vanderbilt. That is the eighth nice SPIE present to universities and institutes as a part of the corporate’s ongoing program to help the enlargement of educating and analysis within the subject of optical expertise.
The SPIE School Fellowship will help a school member at Vanderbilt College who works in optics and photonics. Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering Yuankai “Kenny” Tao was chosen because the recipient of the primary present.
Tao obtained his bachelor’s levels in electrical and pc engineering and biomedical engineering, and a grasp’s diploma and doctorate in biomedical engineering from Duke College. Previous to becoming a member of Vanderbilt School, Tao was an assistant professor within the Cleveland Clinic’s eye analysis division and director of the diagnostic imaging and biophotonics laboratory on the Cole Eye Institute.
“I’m extremely honored to obtain this scholarship,” mentioned Tao. “My graduate and postdoc coaching in optics has been essentially the most defining expertise of my life, and SPIE conferences and publications have at all times been and at all times are the best way wherein I work together with the broader optics and photonics neighborhood. I’m very glad to have an incredible quantity of help and mentoring at Vanderbilt. We now have one of many few biophotonics facilities within the nation and a vital mass of colleges in imaging, sensing, laser-tissue interactions, supplies, and nanophotonics. This scholarship shall be an vital useful resource as we proceed to recruit the most effective and brightest trainees and researchers in optics and photonics for Vanderbilt. ”
“I’m thrilled that SPIE has chosen Vanderbilt Engineering as a school scholarship recipient,” mentioned Bruce and Bridgitt Evans, Dean of Engineering Philippe Fauchet. “These investments present important help for our most promising younger schools to additional develop their analysis applications and improve the college’s aggressive benefit in recruiting the most effective graduates.”
“The SPIE School Fellowship shall be instrumental in increasing the alternatives for Vanderbilt College’s college working in optics and photonics,” mentioned SPIE President David Andrews. “Your college will profit straight from the present and it’ll have a constructive affect on their college students’ studying expertise. This partnership between SPIE and Vanderbilt may have a long-term affect on generations of optics academics, researchers and college students. ”
The SPIE Endowment Matching Program was launched in 2019 to extend worldwide capability in educating and analysis in optics and photonics. With this newest basis, this system surpasses the $ 3 million mark for funding. The SPIE Endowment Matching Program helps optics and photonics schooling and the way forward for the trade by funding as much as $ 500,000 per award to school and college applications with optics and photonics levels or different disciplines associated to the SPIE mission .
About SPIE
SPIE is the Worldwide Society for Optics and Photonics, a non-profit instructional group based in 1955 to advance light-based science, engineering and expertise. Serving greater than 258,000 members from 184 international locations, the society provides conferences and their printed reviews, schooling, books, magazines and the SPIE Digital Library. In 2020, SPIE supplied over $ 5 million in neighborhood help together with scholarships and awards, outreach and advocacy applications, journey grants, public coverage, and academic sources. www.spie.org.
