Photonics Media Names 2018 Scholarship Winner

JUSTINE MURPHY, SENIOR EDITOR, justine.murphy@photonics.com

Photonics Media, a division of Laurin Publishing Co., has named Zhenxu Bai the 2018 recipient of the Teddi C. Laurin Scholarship.

Bai is a cotutelle Ph.D. candidate at Macquarie University in Australia, and Harbin Institute of Technology in China, under the joint supervision of professors Rich Mildren and Zhiwei Lu. Bai’s research interests include solid-state lasers, ultrashort-pulse laser technology, and nonlinear optics. Currently, his research focuses on Raman and Brillouin lasers in diamond.

“The distinctive properties of diamond make it a promising approach in developing compact high-efficiency and high-brightness lasers,” Bai said. “My future work will focus on power-scaling of diamond lasers and development of on-chip diamond devices for microwave-photonic applications.”

The scholarship’s first recipient, Kaitlyn Williams (2016), is currently an optical engineer for Apple Inc. Brandon Born, the 2017 recipient, is now a postdoctoral researcher at Stanford University.

Co-funded by Photonics Media and SPIE (the international society for optics and photonics), the $5000 annual scholarship is named for the late Teddi C. Laurin, an industry pioneer and founder of Laurin Publishing Co. It was established to raise awareness of optics and photonics and to foster growth and success in the photonics industry by supporting students involved in the field.

“This is an exciting time for the [photonics] industry, with advances in medicine, telecommunications, space exploration, and transportation set to transform every aspect of daily life,” said Tom Laurin, president and CEO of Laurin Publishing Co. “Teddi was, first and foremost, a champion of the industry. With this in mind, we started the scholarship as one way of passing the torch to the next generation of scholars and researchers.”

The late Teddi C. Laurin got her start in the photonics and publishing realms in the 1960s, working alongside former Eastman Kodak physicist Dr. Clifton M. Tuttle on a one-volume annual optical industry directory. Upon his retirement, she expanded the directory into a four-volume compilation that included a photonics handbook and dictionary. In 1967, she established Optical Spectra, which featured industry business and technical news. The publication was renamed Photonics Spectra in 1982.

Today, Laurin Publishing Co. publishes business-to-business magazines, industry directories, online news, books, and educational materials. Webinars and other multimedia are also offered. The company is headquartered in Pittsfield, Mass., with satellite branches and editorial contributors around the world.