Two U-M students receive scholarships from the International Society for Optics and Photonics

SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics, has awarded $298,000 in education scholarships to 84 outstanding SPIE student members based on their potential contribution to optics and photonics, or a related discipline. Award-winning applicants were evaluated, selected and approved by the SPIE Scholarship Committee.

Below are the U-M students who received scholarships.

Hanzhang Pei is a PhD candidate at the University of Michigan (USA) in Electrical and Computer Engineering and Scientific Computing. Advised by Dr. Almantas Galvanauskas, he is currently working on the coherent temporal combining of ultrashort pulses and energy extraction from fiber amplifiers, which will enable next-generation particle accelerators and many more exciting applications. Pei will also serve as the President of the Optics Society at the Univ. of Michigan Chapter this coming year.

Darwin F. Cordovilla Leon is a PhD candidate in the Applied Physics Program at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He is also an NSF Graduate Research Fellow and University of Michigan Rackham Merit Fellow. Cordovilla Leon studies the dynamics of excitons in Van der Waals materials using spatially and temporally-resolved optical spectroscopy techniques under the supervision of Professors Parag B. Deotare and Duncan G. Steel. His vision is to develop energy efficient, on-chip opto-excitonic devices for applications in information processing, energy harvesting, and communications.