Edmund Optics (EO; Barrington, NJ) announced the recipients of its 2017 Educational Award program, given in recognition of outstanding undergraduate and graduate optics programs in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics at non-profit colleges and universities worldwide.
Over 750 applications were reviewed to select 30 global finalists. From these, $45,000 in EO products are awarded to the Gold, Silver, and Bronze winners in the Americas and Europe. The remaining finalists all receive a $500 product matching grant to assist with their research. Also, the Norman Edmund Inspiration Award, which is an additional $5,000 in EO products, will be given to one of the global finalists on November 8, 2017.
In the Americas, the Gold Award of $10,000 in EO products went to the Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique, of Canada, 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, of Argentina, and submitted by Fernando Alvira for the implementation of an interferometric spectrometer for Raman spectroscopy as a tool to diagnose Alzheimer's disease.
The Bronze Award of $5,000 in EO products was awarded to Boston University, in the United States, and submitted by Daniel Leman for the design of a lightweight, 3D-printed, wireless-capable microscope for single-photon fluorescence imaging in awake, behaving animals.
In Europe, the Gold Award of €7,000 in EO products went to Universität Innsbruck, of Austria, and 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, and 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.
Source: Edmund Optics