The Photonics Society of Chinese Heritage (PSC) announced during OFC 2021 the two recipients of the second Tingye Li Memorial Scholarship Award. Chao Xiang, a Ph.D. student from the University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB) and Runzhou Zhang, a Ph.D. student from the University of Southern California (USC), each received a certificate and $1,000 in recognition of their scholastic work.
A Scholarship Selection Committee chose Xiang and Zhang for this year’s awards from a pool of candidates from top Ph.D. programs worldwide. Committee members included Prof. Alan Willner (USC), Prof. John Bowers (UCSB), Prof. Vincent Chan (MIT), Dr. Hong Hou (Intel), and Dr. Xiang Zhou (Google). Chao was recognized for his work in silicon nitride photonics integrated circuits (PICs), while Zhang was cited for his work in high-capacity free-space optical communications using structured light.
The scholarship award is named for the late Dr. Tingye Li, a Chinese American scientist in photonics and entrepreneur who conducted pioneering work at AT&T Bell Labs in lightwave communications. He received numerous awards, including the IEEE Baker Prize (1975), IEEE David Sarnoff Award (1979), OSA/IEEE John Tyndall Award (1995), AT&T Science and Technology Medal (1997), IEEE Photonics Award (2004), IEEE Edison Medal (2009), OSA Frederic Ives Medal (1997), and the PSC Achievement Awards from the Photonics Society of Chinese-Americans (1998).
The PSC established the annual scholarship award in late 2019 to honor Dr. Li; recognize outstanding graduate students in the fields of optics and photonics, including optical communications, optical sensors, and integrated photonics; and give back to the photonics/scientific community. The award is open to graduate students and are granted to no more than two nominees based on the students’ academic achievements documented by technical publications or conference presentations in reputable journals or conferences, willingness to serve the scientific community as evidenced by past activities, and receipt of strong recommendations from the candidate's sponsor and advisor. The current scholarship committee is chaired by Dr. Xuezhe Zheng, with Dr. Steve Yao and Dr. Shifu Yuan as members.
The PSC is a non-profit organization founded in 1984 by a group of scientists and engineers of Chinese heritage in Los Angeles. It seeks to promote friendships and collaborations among Chinese-American engineers and scientists in the field of photonics. Information about the organization can be found on its website.
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