{"id":159439,"date":"2025-02-03T14:29:22","date_gmt":"2025-02-03T19:29:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/?p=159439"},"modified":"2025-02-03T15:06:32","modified_gmt":"2025-02-03T20:06:32","slug":"eye-opening-contributions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/2025\/02\/03\/eye-opening-contributions\/","title":{"rendered":"Eye-Opening Contributions"},"content":{"rendered":"

Professors Sander & Tian Named Optica Fellows<\/h2>\n

by A.J. Kleber<\/em><\/p>\n

Two associate professors of electrical and computer engineering, Michelle Sander and Lei Tian, have been honored with election to Optica\u2019s 2025 class of <\/span>Fellows<\/span><\/a>, an event that serves to underscore the entire department\u2019s increasingly impressive stature in the realm of optics and photonics.<\/span><\/p>\n

Optica, formerly known as the Optical Society of America (OSA), is the preeminent professional society in those fields; Fellow Members of the society are selected based on their record of \u201cdistinguished contributions to education, research, engineering, business and society.\u201d This prestigious distinction is awarded annually to approximately 0.5% of the society\u2019s total membership.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"Professor Michelle Sander <\/span><\/a>leads BU\u2019s Ultrafast Optics Laboratory, performing cutting-edge research to develop ultrafast lasers, photothermal light-matter interactions for imaging and modulation with applications in biomedicine and materials science. She is the recent recipient of a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE); other honors include a 2019 NSF CAREER Award and 2017 AFOSR Young Investigator Award. She is a Senior Member of IEEE and SPIE. In electing her as Fellow, Optica cites her \u201cseminal contributions to ultrafast fiber lasers and their applications in imaging, material characterization, and modulation.\u201d\u00a0 Some of her recent research has focused on creating novel photothermal microscopes for label-free, high-resolution cellular imaging and studying the associated heat transfer dynamics in neural cells, and pursuing techniques for the use of fiber lasers combined with chirped pulse amplification as a robust laser source for two-photon microscopy.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"Professor Lei Tian<\/span><\/a>, recognized by Optica for \u201ccontributions to computational microscopy, including differential phase contrast microscopy, Fourier ptychography, optical diffraction tomography, and imaging in scattering,\u201d is a pioneering researcher in computational imaging who utilizes deep learning and other data science techniques to design and build novel imaging devices and technologies. A fellow 2019 NSF CAREER Award recipient, Professor Tian\u2019s groundbreaking work earned the support of a $1.31 million grant from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative in 2023. His work has driven significant advancements in biomedical imaging and semiconductor inspection, yielding fast, accurate, and cost-effective solutions for diverse applications. These range from monitoring neural activity in mice to investigate fundamental mechanisms of neural circuitry and characterizing complex 3D semiconductor structures.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ECE Professors Michelle Sander and Lei Tian have been elected to Optica’s 2025 class of Fellows.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18241,"featured_media":159455,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[236,385,977,240,907,1066,1087],"tags":[1301,793,835,836,1106,1107,408,410,1300,1299],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159439"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18241"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=159439"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159439\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":159457,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159439\/revisions\/159457"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/159455"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=159439"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=159439"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=159439"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}