Center Initiatives

New Faculty Initiative Program

The Center’s New Faculty Initiative Program, successfully implemented with Professor Hatice Altug, helps accelerate the scholarly career of a new biophotonics faculty member appointed to one of the Center’s core departments. Biophotonics, the integration of “biology and light”, is an area of strategic importance to the BUPC. Applications and devices in medicine, genetics and environmental science, for defense and non-defense models, form a strong base for faculty and students to pursue research in this area. A particular emphasis is placed on translational biophotonics that employ the Center’s pipeline of innovation in this field. This award is a part of the BUPC-ARL Cooperative Agreement and aims to provide support for academic equipment and program startup costs for a new tenured or tenure-track faculty position. The research conducted by these new faculty members must be complementary to the BUPC core intellectual and academic strengths.

These areas of strength include:

• Biophotonics imaging, the study of optical imaging and how it is used to understand biological problems, including microscopy, subsurface probing of tissue, adaptive optics for retinal and neurobiological imaging.
• Biomedical photonics, the study of light-based systems for applications including detecting and treating disease, probing molecules and cells, sensing pathogens, microsurgery and wound healing.

The Center’s leadership in this important area of research and development is strengthened by an unparalleled geographic concentration of biophotonics-related academic and commercial activities in the Boston area. The success of our program depends on our ability to attract, support, and retain the field’s most promising academic researchers.

New Equipment Grants

The equipment committee meets for several weeks each year to review input from various photonics faculty and staff members to determine the best use of BUPC-ARL capital equipment allocations to enhance the shared resources at the center. The committee reviews proposals presented by faculty members, investigates further information and makes an impartial decision on the equipment based upon the following four categories:

• The instrument will be widely usable as a shared resource in the Photonics Center to enhance the research and development programs;
• The instrument will provide critical leverage for attracting additional support to the Center for research and development; and
• The instrument will enhance the careers and photonics-related research of junior faculty members of the Photonics Center.