Lauren Cooper awarded Optics and Photonics Education Scholarship from SPIE

ECE PhD student Lauren Cooper has been awarded a 2022 Optics and Photonics Education Scholarship by SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics, for her potential contributions to the field of optics, photonics, or related field.

Cooper focuses on nonlinear coherent pulse stacking, a novel method to achieve high energy, ultrashort pulses from a fiber laser system. Her work could help provide the bursts for next-generation particle accelerators – which have a variety of uses in medicine, manufacturing, and food safety – and advance attosecond science, as well as other applications.

“This research would be able to provide both a high average power and a high peak power laser source,” Cooper said. “Ideally, this setup could provide the driver for a laser-wakefield accelerator.”

Laser-wakefield accelerators (LWFAs) promise to deliver compact, high energy particle accelerators, which are particularly useful for medical, biological, military, defense, and industrial applications, as well as condensed matter and high energy density science.

This research would be able to provide both a high average power and a high peak power laser source.

Lauren Cooper

Cooper is advised by Prof. Almantas Galvanauskas. She is a recipient of a fellowship from the Department of Energy’s Office of Science Graduate Student Research (DOE-SCGSR), which is awarded to outstanding U.S. graduate students to pursue part of their graduate thesis research at a DOE laboratory or facility. She is currently working at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, which is managed by University of California.

In addition to her studies, Cooper said, “I have a strong interest in STEM outreach, and have been part of several projects in both undergraduate and graduate school that have a goal of engaging younger generations of students in STEM fields. I credit my academic success to the guidance of my advisor, as well as the professors at the University of Michigan that have helped me along the way.”

Cooper is a member of the Graduate Society for Women Engineers, the Optics Society at the University of Michigan, and Eta Kappa Nu (HKN), the Honor Society for Electrical and Computer Engineers, and she serves as an ECE Student Ambassador. She earned her BS in Mechanical Engineering from Western Kentucky University. In her spare time, she enjoys running, cooking, and flying airplanes.