BELLINGHAM, Washington, USA - SPIE is awarding $292,000 in scholarships to 116 outstanding individuals, based on their potential for long-range contribution to optics and photonics, or a related discipline. Award-winning applicants were evaluated and selected by the SPIE Scholarship Committee.

To date, SPIE has distributed over $2.5 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.

· Chee-Loon Tan, Lehigh University, is awarded the SPIE D.J. Lovell Scholarship. It is the Society's most prestigious scholarship and is sponsored by SPIE with contributions from Labsphere, Inc. Tan plans to use his scholarship for tuition to lessen his financial burden so that more time can be spent on his research studies.

Boon-Siew Ooi, Associate Professor at Lehigh University said, "Chee-Loon's quick ability to acquire new knowledge highly impressed me. He joined my group with minimum background in semiconductor photonics and solid state physics. His diligence in picking up essential knowledge enables him to perform his research in very short time. By the end of his first year with Lehigh, Chee-Loon has begun to develop new theoretical model to analyze broad optical gain semiconductor quantum dot media."

· The John Kiel Scholarship is awarded to Miguel Bandres, California Institute of Technology. This is the Society's second largest scholarship and is sponsored by SPIE. Bandres plans to use his scholarship to travel to the SPIE Optics+Photonics meeting. Any award money left will be used to update his computer.

Julio César Gutiérrez Vega, Optics Center Director, Tecnológico de Monterrey, said, "Miguel was my research-assistant in 2003; during that time he proved to be a good and responsible assistant with a deep thought, intellectual skills, and an excellent initiative to learn, and to work independently. Without any doubt, I think he is the best student in the last four years in our Physics program."

· The Laser Technology, Engineering and Applications Scholarship is awarded to Can Bayram, Northwestern University. This 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, and in part by SPIE.

· Derek Kopon, The University of Arizona, is awarded the Optical Design and Engineering Scholarship. The Scholarship was established in honor of Bill Price and Warren Smith, both well-respected members of SPIE's technical community. This scholarship is awarded to a full-time undergraduate or graduate student in the field of optical design and engineering.

· Volker Sorger is awarded the BACUS Photomask Scholarship. The scholarship is 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.

More 2009 SPIE Scholarship Winners:
Kristen Alexander, Univ. of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (USA)
Praveen Ashok, Univ. of St. Andrews (UK)
Hari Atkuri, Kent State Univ. (USA)
Daniel Bankman, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (USA)
Stephanie Benight, Univ. of Washington (USA)
Lisset R. Bickford, Rice Univ. (USA)
Michael Borden, The Univ. of Arizona (USA)
Sergey B. Borin, Moscow Engineering Physics Institute (Russia)
Patrick T. Bowen, North Carolina State Univ. (USA)
Joel Carpenter, Univ. of Cambridge (UK)
Laura Carpin, Rice University (USA)
Abhijit Chakravarty, Florida Institute of Technology (USA)
Joseph Chang, Rice University (USA)
Michael Chernodub, Moscow Engineering Physics Institute (Russia)
Alex Chernyshov, Chernivtsi National University (Ukraine)
Chris H. Clifford, Univ. of California, Berkeley (USA)
Mehdi Daneshpanah, Univ. of Connecticut (USA)
Rajdeep Deb, Assam University (India)
Gergely Dolgos, Univ. of Maryland, Baltimore County (USA)
Ujjal Dutta, Univ. of Calcutta (India)
Shayson C. Edwards, Norco High School (USA)
Anthony Erlinger, Univ. of California, Los Angeles (USA)
Christopher Evans, Univ. of Rochester (USA)
Michael Gaj, The Univ. of Arizona (USA)
Sergey O. Galetskiy, M.V. Lomonosov Moscow State Univ. (Russia)
Liang Gao, Rice University (USA)
Dennis Gardner, Univ. of Colorado at Boulder (USA)
Teodor Georgiev, Howard High School (USA)
XiaoMing Goh, Univ. of Melbourne (Australia)
Amir Golnabi, Dartmouth College (USA)
Jason Grenier, Univ. of Toronto (Canada)
Manuel Guizar-Sicairos, Univ. of Rochester (USA)
Honglei Guo, Univ. of Ottawa (Canada)
Alexandr A. Gurin, Moscow Engineering Physics Institute (Russia)
David Haefner, Univ. of Central Florida (USA)
Tao Han, Univ. of Houston (USA)
Brooke Hester, Univ. of Maryland (USA)
Min-Chieh Ho, Stanford University (USA)
Ying Hu, Rice Univ. (USA)
Olena Ivashyna, Washington Univ. in St. Louis (USA)
Mikhail Khodzitskiy, Institute of Radiophysics & Electronics (Ukraine)
Dae Wook Kim, The Univ. of Arizona (USA)
Kyujung Kim, Yonsei University (South Korea)
Rajesh Kumar, Cochin Univ. of Science and Technology (India)
Hannah La Fleur, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology (USA)
Yan Li, Univ. of Central Florida (USA)
Yiang (Kaccie) Li, Univ. of California, Berkeley (USA)
Rui Liu, Univ. of California, Davis (USA)
Houssine Makhlouf, The Univ. of Arizona (USA)
Bilal Malik, Texas A&M University (USA)
Pouya Maraghechi, Univ. of Alberta (Canada)
Ashok P. Masilamani, Univ. of Alberta (Canada)
Brian Miller, Univ. of Arizona (USA)
Marshal Miller, Univ. of California, Berkeley (USA)
Austin Moy, Univ. of California, Irvine (USA)
Jianwei Mu, McMaster University (Canada)
Pagah Naeimi, Univ. of Colorado at Boulder (USA)
Alexey Naumov, Moscow Engineering Physics Institute (Russia)
Bernard Ng, Univ. of British Columbia (Canada)
Eldon Ng, The Univ. of Western Ontario (Canada)
Binh-Minh Nguyen, Northwestern University (USA)
John Nguyen, Cornell University (USA)
Brandon Nichols, Univ. of Texas at Austin (USA)
Sedat Nizamoglu, Bilkent University (Turkey)
Kevin Pate, Corvallis High School (USA)
Justin Paul, The Univ. of Arizona (USA)
Thomas Pfrommer, Univ. of British Columbia (Canada)
Mohammad Umar Piracha, Univ. of Central Florida (USA)
Rafal Pukownik, Nicolaus Copernicus University (Poland)
Nicole Putnam, Univ. of California, Berkeley (USA)
Nevin V. Raj, Hunterdon Central Regional High School (USA)
Prashant Raman, Univ. of Alabama in Huntsville (USA)
Matthew Reichert, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology (USA)
Timothy Renkoski, The Univ. of Arizona (USA)
Michael Roumeliotis, The Univ. of Western Ontario (Canada)
Jesus Adrian Ruelas, Tecnologico de Monterrey (Mexico)
Rashid Safaisini, Colorado State University (USA)
Harikrishnan B. Sankaramangalam, Cochin Univ. of Science & Technology (India)
Franklin Savarimuthu, National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirappalli (India)
Matthew Schwab, The Univ. of Arizona (USA)
Matthew Sederberg, Univ. of Alberta (Canada)
Bohdan Senyuk, Kent State University (USA)
Mumtaz Sheikh, Univ. of Central Florida (USA)
Eugene Sholohov, Moscow Engineering Physics Institute (Russia)
Sonam Shrivastav, ACS General Hospital and College (India)
Majinyang Song, Constance Teoh, and Ruojun Ding, Raffles Girls' School (Secondary) (Singapore)
Hector Sosa-Martinez, Tecnologico de Monterrey (Mexico)
Joel Spencer, Tufts University (USA)
Pradeep Srinivasan, Univ. of Central Florida (USA)
Xiankai Sun, California Institute of Technology (USA)
Amirhossein Tehranchi, Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal (Canada)
Warit Thanopachai, Chulalongkorn University (Thailand)
Rahul Trivedi, Univ. of Colorado, Boulder (USA)
Maxim Tsarev, N.I. Lobachevsky State Univ. of Nizhni Novgorod (Russia)
Fartash Vasefi, Simon Fraser University (Canada)
Wesley J. Verne, N. Carolina School of Science & Mathematics (USA)
Ashwin Wagadarikar, Duke University (USA)
Sean Wagner, Univ. of Toronto (Canada)
Lirong Wang, The Univ. of Arizona (USA)
Brian Wheelwright, The Univ. of Arizona (USA)
Bethany Wilcox, Univ. of Colorado, Boulder (USA)
Rigel Woida-O'Brien, The Univ. of Arizona (USA)
Mark Woolston, Colorado State University (USA)
Elizaveta Yankovskaya, St. Petersburg State Univ. of ITMO (Russia)
Adam Yuh Lin, Baylor College of Medicine and Rice University (USA)
Livia Zarnescu, The Univ. of Arizona (USA)
Jun Zhang, The Univ. of Arizona (USA)
Rui Zhang, The Univ. of Arizona (USA)
Hongping Zhao, Lehigh University (USA)
Alexander Zhdanov, M.V. Lomonosov Moscow State University (Russia)
Likai Zhu, Univ. of Central Florida (USA)

SPIE is the international optics and photonics society founded in 1955 to advance light-based technologies. Serving more than 188,000 constituents from 138 countries, the Society advances emerging technologies through interdisciplinary information exchange, continuing education, publications, patent precedent, and career and professional growth. SPIE annually organizes and sponsors approximately 25 major technical forums, exhibitions, and education programs in North America, Europe, Asia, and the South Pacific. In 2008, the Society provided $1.9 million for scholarships, grants, and other activities supporting research and education around the world. For more information, visit SPIE.org

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