{"id":95151,"date":"2020-03-16T12:00:38","date_gmt":"2020-03-16T16:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/?p=95151"},"modified":"2022-10-21T16:24:47","modified_gmt":"2022-10-21T20:24:47","slug":"rosalind-wynne","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/2020\/03\/16\/rosalind-wynne\/","title":{"rendered":"ECE Alumna, Rosalind Wynne, advances fiber optic research"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Colbi Edmonds<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Rosalind
Rosalind Wynne (ENG\u201901, ENG\u201905). Photo courtesy of Villanova University.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Boston University alumna Rosalind Wynne (ENG\u201901, ENG\u201905) is an award-winning African-American engineer. She is currently an associate professor at the Villanova University\u2019s College of Engineering. Reflecting back on her graduate years at BU, Wynne acknowledges some of the impactful faculty during her M.S. and PhD studies in BU\u2019s ECE Department.<\/p>\n

\u201cMark Horenstein, Bill Oliver, Roscoe Giles, all of those people were very supportive during my PhD program.\u201d said Wynne.<\/p>\n

Katherine Kennedy at BU\u2019s Howard Thurman Center as well as Katherine Jackson at the Ahana group also had a positive impact on Wynne\u2019s social experience on campus.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese were excellent resources for me and other graduate students of color. They really gave us the support to complete our programs successfully,\u201d said Wynne.<\/p>\n

As a child, Wynne watched her father and uncle fix things around the house, which led to her curiosity about engineering. But, she has always been interested in the research that is behind fixing those \u201cthings.\u201d<\/p>\n

Currently, she conducts research on fiber optics, and is the director of the Laboratory for Lightwave Devices which involves hands-on experience for students. According to Wynne, she felt \u201cwell equipped\u201d to begin her career outside of BU and start sharing her knowledge with students.<\/p>\n

\u201cI work with spaghetti-sized strands or eyelash-thin strands of glass that have cavities in them. I put things like cells and bacteria in them to look at cell cultures for point-of-care, real-time testing of, for example, water or food quality,\u201d explained Wynne.<\/p>\n

According to Wynne, this research is applicable to various forms of manufacturing such as food and pharmaceuticals, environmental protection, and healthcare industry.<\/p>\n

Professor Wynne is excited about the future of fiber optics as technology continues to advance throughout the field.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s such a powerful tool, and we\u2019re just now scratching the surface of what light can do now that the manufacturing technology has caught up. Eventually, we hope photonic computing will become a reality, and through optofluidics we will monitor the behavior of the brain activity using light,\u201d predicted Wynne.<\/p>\n

According to Wynne, these studies may help understand the general workings of the brain, on the chemical and electrical level, and have far-reaching consequences.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe brain is almost like the ocean, it\u2019s a planet itself. It\u2019s undiscovered territory, it\u2019s unexplored territory,\u201d said Wynne.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Boston University alumna Rosalind Wynne (ENG\u201901, ENG\u201905) is an award-winning African-American engineer. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17511,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[236],"tags":[280,260,262,339,264],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95151"}],"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\/17511"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=95151"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95151\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":128506,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95151\/revisions\/128506"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95151"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95151"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}