Duke Broadband 14th edition

Duke Broadband: 14th Edition

Contents

From the Director

Tuan Vo-DinhWelcome to the 2021 issue of Broadband, the newsletter of the Fitzpatrick Institute for Photonics (FIP).

With the continuing dedication and active contribution of its faculty, students and staff, the FIP has continued to grow in research, education, industrial activities and membership. The Institute has witnessed a strong, collective vision for collaborative research among its faculty throughout the Duke campus, reflecting the vitality and dynamism of the outstanding achievements of its faculty.

Read full letter

The FIP faculty membership has increased to over 150 faculty members with participation from over 40 departments and institutions ranging from Biomedical Engineering, Electrical & Computer Engineering, Mechanical Engineering & Materials Science, Chemistry, Physics, Computer Science, and Mathematics to Anesthesiology, Cell Biology, Chemical Biology, Neurosurgery, Oncology, Orthopedic Engineering, Ophthalmology, Pathology, Pediatrics, Radiology and Surgery as well as Art, Art History and Visual Studies.

Promoting cross-disciplinary collaborative research at Duke is a major goal of the FIP, and one of its criteria for success. This issue of Broadband highlights the research activities and achievements of some of our faculty members who have established important research programs with colleagues within and outside of the Pratt School of Engineering, underlining their outstanding cross-disciplinary collaborations.

In spite of serious challenges due the pandemic in 2020 and 2021, our Institute has adapted to the situation and maintained important activities. This was a strong reflection of the resilience of the Institute, its faculty, students and staff.  We continued to maintain a robust FIP Seminar Series with invited lectures from distinguished guests in the US and abroad using the remote online format.  We have also organized a Friday Breakfast Series, where students and faculty are invited to participate.

A highlight of our activities was the 2021 FIP Virtual Symposium with the Keynote Lecture presented by Dr. Rainer Weiss, 2017 Nobel Laureate in Physics, who delivered the keynote lecture on “The Beginnings of Gravitational Wave Astronomy: Current State and Future”. The meeting also marked our Institute’s celebration of The International Day of Light (IDL) as proclaimed by UNESCO every year on May 16; this special day is dedicated to recognizing the central role of light in many aspects our life ranging from lifesaving medical advances in diagnostics and treatment technologies to light-speed internet connecting communities worldwide and renewable energy sources critical for a sustainable world.

The themes of the 2021 Symposium Special Topics included Advanced Interferometry, Light Technologies and The Brain, and Photonics and Pandemics. Researchers from Duke and many countries including Canada, Germany, Italy, Russia, Singapore, Spain and Switzerland have contributed lectures, posters and panels to the symposium program. The program also included a special K-12 outreach event with light-based technology demonstrations, tutorials and demonstrations on "light painting" and a photo contest open to high school students and the general public.

I invite you to visit our website at fitzpatrick.duke.edu to learn more about our faculty, research programs, and activities.

I send to you my very best wishes for a successful, safe, and enjoyable year.

Tuan Vo-Dinh
Director, Fitzpatrick Institute of Photonics
R. Eugene and Susie E. Goodson Professor of Biomedical Engineering
Professor of Chemistry

Back to top

New Frontiers

A series of different colored panels each representing pulling a different piece of data from lightCapturing All of Light’s Data in One Snapshot

Duke engineers to lead $7.5 million Department of Defense project to create a “super camera” that can capture and process a wide range of light’s properties

Featuring Maiken Mikkelsen

Rocks, x-rays of rocks, a jumble of bluish light, multicolored images of the rocks, graphs showing different spectral responsesX-ray Scanner Spots Cancers and Analyzes Drugs in Minutes

New technology could speed cancer diagnosis, ensure surgeons remove 100% of a tumor and inspect drugs for dangerous chemicals

Featuring Joel Greenberg

A woman is in front of the OCT system. It takes images of her eyes.Robotic Scanner Automates Diagnostic Imaging in the Eye

By removing the need for highly trained technicians, the imaging tool could make it easier to diagnose eye diseases outside of specialized clinics

Featuring Joseph Izatt

The image shows the heart rate monitor reading on a standard smart watch.Data from Smartwatches Can Help Predict Clinical Blood Test Results

Long-term data gathered from wearables can quicky indicate illness and other abnormalities in a patient’s health

Featuring Jessilyn Dunn

Two-photon imaging shows neurons firing in a mouse's brain. Machine Learning Platform Identifies Activated Neurons in Real-Time

Streamlined AI immediately and accurately maps activated neurons to help learn how the brain works

Featuring Sina Farsiu and Yiyang Gong

smart toilet’Smart Toilet’ Uses Artificial Intelligence to Monitor Bowel Health

AI vision of flushes enables long-term tracking and management of chronic GI ills

Featuring Sonia Grego

Back to top

New FIP Faculty

Jun ChenJun "Benny" Chen

Professor of Medicine

Member of the Duke Cancer Institute

Affiliate of the Duke Regeneration Center

Greg FieldGreg Field

Assistant Professor of Neurobiology

Faculty Network Member of the Duke Institute for Brain Sciences

Lindsey GlickfeldLindsey Glickfeld

Associate Professor of Neurobiology

Faculty Network Member of the Duke Institute for Brain Sciences

Po-Chun HsuPo-Chun Hsu

Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering & Materials Science

colorful galaxyCosmology Group

Dan Scolnic, Assistant Professor of Physics

Michael Troxel, Assistant Professor of Physics

Chris Walter, Professor of Physics

Back to top

2021 Chambers Scholar

Enakshi SunasseeEnakshi Sunassee

Third-Year PhD Candidate, Biomedical Engineering

PhD student Enakshi Sunassee is working on a device that could reveal metabolic biomarkers of a cancer’s recurrence

Back to top

2021 FIP Symposium Highlights

Special Topics: Advanced Interferometry • Light Technologies and The Brain • Photonics and Pandemics

This year's Fitzpatrick Institute for Photonics Symposium provided a feast for the eyes and the intellect, drawing around 250 attendees for a celebration of artistic and scientific advances made possible through light-based technologies. The virtual event kicked off on the International Day of Light (May 16) with a talk by John Dudley, chair of the UNESCO IDL Steering Committee, and a K-12 outreach event featuring technology demonstrations, tutorials on "light painting" and a photo contest. Scientific sessions on May 17-18 drew participants from around the world, with lectures, posters and panels by researchers from Canada, Germany, Italy, Russia, Singapore, Spain and Switzerland (and Duke, of course!). Nobel Laureate Rainer Weiss, recipient of the 2021 FIP Pioneer in Photonics Award, delivered the keynote address on gravitational wave astronomy. Visit the 2021 Symposium website to learn more, and watch symposium recordings on YouTube.


Symposium Keynote

Rainer Weiss“The beginnings of gravitational wave astronomy: current state and future”

Rainer Weiss

Nobel Laureate in Physics 2017
Professor of Physics, Emeritus, Massachusetts Institute of Technology


Plenary Lectures

Ed Boyden“Optical Tools for Analyzing and Controlling Biological Systems”

Edward S. Boyden

Y. Eva Tan Professor in Neurotechnology at MIT
Howard Hughes Medical Institute Departments of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Media Arts and Sciences, and Biological Engineering
Co-Director, MIT Center for Neurobiological Engineering

Valery Tuchin“Towards multimodal tissue imaging with optical clearing”

Valery V. Tuchin

Head of Optics and Biophotonics Chair
Saratov State University
National Research Tomsk State University
ITMO University, Institute of Precision Mechanics
and Control of the RAS, Russia

Visit 2021 symposium website to view all talks »

Back to top