Edmund Optics announces 2017 Educational Award winners

22 Oct 2017

Educational awards worth thousands in EO products and finance distributed among universities in the Americas and Europe.

Photonics components supplier Edmund Optics (EO) has announced the recipients of its 2017 Educational Award program. This award is given annually by the company in recognition of “outstanding undergraduate and graduate optics programs in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics worldwide".

EO's Educational Award Team has evaluated over 750 applications to select 30 global finalists. Company products worth a total of $45,000 will be awarded to the Gold, Silver, and Bronze winners from the Americas and Europe to support their research. The remaining finalists will all receive a €250 product-matching grant. Also the Norman Edmund Inspiration Award, which is worth an additional $5,000 in EO products, will be given to one of the global finalists on November 8, 2017.

Americas awards

In the Americas, the Gold Award of $10,000 in EO products was awarded to the Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique, of Canada, Quebec, and was submitted by Jinyang Liang. For the development of compressed ultrafast microscopy (CUMic) to image neuronal activities in real time.

The Silver Award of $7,500 in EO products, went to Universidad Nacional de Quilmes, Argentina, submitted by Fernando Alvira for the implementation of an interferometric spectrometer for Raman Spectroscopy as a tool to diagnose Alzheimer's Disease.

Boston University, of the United States and submitted by Daniel Leman, was awarded the Bronze Award of $5,000 in EO products. For the design of a lightweight, 3D-printed, wireless-capable microscope for single photon fluorescence imaging in awake, behaving animals.

Europe awards

In Europe, the Gold Award of €7,000 in EO products, went to Universität Innsbruck, Austria, which was submitted by Thorsten Schwerte. For the disruption of host targeting in blood feeding flight insects by dynamic light pattern projection in dark and light rooms.

The Silver Award of €5, 000 in EO products, was presented to Delft University of Technology of The Netherlands and submitted by Hai Gong, for the development of a smart optical malaria diagnostic instrument, deployable to low-resource settings.

The Bronze Award of €3.000 in EO products, was awarded to Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen, of Germany, which was submitted by Florian Bayer. For the development of a 4-fold DLP projection system with filtered high power LEDs to investigate previously inaccessible, fundamental mechanisms of signal processing of the human retina.

Full details of the this year’s Educational Award recipients and their applications are available on the Edmund Optics company website.