ORC student awarded Optics and Photonics Education Scholarship

ORC student, Amol Choudhary, has been awarded a 2013 Scholarship by SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics for his potential contributions to the field of optics, photonics, or related field.

Amol is a third year PhD student in the Optoelectronics Research Centre at the University of Southampton (UK) working on the development of multi-GHz mode-locked waveguide lasers for applications in optical frequency metrology and bio-photonics.

In 2008, he received an Erasmus Mundus scholarship to pursue MSc in Photonics from Gent University and Vrije University in Belgium and University of St. Andrews in Scotland. He completed his B.Eng in Electronics and Communications from the Delhi College of Engineering, University of Delhi, India where he was also the president of the SPIE student chapter in 2007.

“This SPIE scholarship is a great honour and will be beneficial for my current research at the Optoelectronics Research Centre” says Amol.

Amol is one of 139 outstanding individuals awarded a total of $351,000 in scholarships this year. Each scholarship is awarded based on its potential contribution to optics and photonics, or a related discipline.

Professor David Shepherd, Director of Physical Sciences and Engineering's Graduate School, adds: "I am very pleased to see Amol's hard work and undoubted potential recognised in this way and I'm sure that this award will be of great benefit to his future research career"

Award-winning applicants were evaluated, selected and approved by the SPIE Scholarship Committee, chaired by SPIE volunteer Kevin Leonard.

To date SPIE has distributed over $3.5 million dollars in individual scholarships. This ambitious effort reflects the Society's commitment to education and to the next generation of optical scientists and engineers around the world. SPIE scholarships are open to full- and part-time students studying anywhere in the world. All scholarship applications are judged on their own merit based on the experience and education level of the individual student.

Find out more about Amol's work http://www.orc.soton.ac.uk/people.html?person=ac12g10

Learn more at http://spie.org/scholarships.

Contact scholarships@spie.org if you have any questions about the awards.

To view photos and descriptions of the Scholarship Recipients go to http://spie.org/x1737.xml. Notes: SPIE is the international society for optics and photonics, a not-for-profit organisation founded in 1955 to advance light-based technologies. The Society serves nearly 235,000 constituents from approximately 155 countries, offering conferences, continuing education, books, journals, and a digital library in support of interdisciplinary information exchange, professional growth, and patent precedent. SPIE provided over $3.2 million in support of education and outreach programmes in 2012.