May 17, 2007, Bellingham, WA--SPIE is awarding $231,500 in scholarships to 136 outstanding individuals, based on their potential for long-range contribution to optics and photonics, or a related discipline. Since 1986, SPIE has distributed over $2 million dollars in individual scholarships to a total of 1,019 students across 60 countries. This ambitious effort reflects the Society's commitment to education and to the next generation of optical scientists and engineers around the world.
Amit Kumar Agrawal, University of Utah (Salt Lake City) received the $11,000 D.J. Lovell Scholarship, the Society's most prestigious scholarship. This scholarship is sponsored by SPIE with contributions from Labsphere (North Sutton, NH). Agrawal cites travel support as a major incentive in applying for an SPIE Scholarship.
"The multidisciplinary nature of my research requires that the work be disseminated across audiences from various disciplines," he said. "The limited amount of travel money available through research grants severely limits my attendance at meetings. This scholarship will ease these financial limitations, and allow me the educational benefits of discussing my work with researchers from other fields. Learning from them will be invaluable."
Beau A. Standish, University of Toronto (Canada), was awarded $10,000 for the 2nd place SPIE Scholarship.
The Laser Technology, Engineering and Applications Scholarship was awarded to Carlos López-Mariscal, Tec de Monterrey (Mexico). The $4,000 Laser Technology, Engineering and Applications Scholarship is awarded in recognition of the student's scholarly achievement in Laser Technology, Engineering, or Applications. Funds are provided in part by a gift from the former Forum for Military Applications of Directed Energy (FMADE), and in part by SPIE.
The William H. Price Scholarship in Optical Engineering was awarded to Garam Yun, University of Arizona (Tucson). The $3,000 William H. Price Scholarship in Optical Engineering was established in 1985 to honor Bill Price, a well respected member of SPIE's technical community. This scholarship is awarded to a full-time graduate or undergraduate student in the field of optical design and engineering.
Two BACUS Photomask Scholarships were awarded this year. $2,500 was awarded to Chris Clifford, University of California, Berkeley and $2,000 was awarded to Nikolay Makarov, Montana State University (Bozeman). The BACUS Photomask Scholarships are awarded to a full-time undergraduate or graduate 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.
A complete list of winners can be viewed at SPIE.