Pratik Samant, a PhD candidate in the Stephenson School of Biomedical Engineering conducting research with Dr. Liangzhong Xiang, has been awarded an Optics and Photonics Education Scholarship by the International Society for Optics and Photonics (SPIE). SPIE Optics and Photonics Education Scholarships are open to students located anywhere in the world who are studying optics, photonics, or related fields.
As a graduate student, this is Samant’s second international scholarship, previously having been awarded a SPIE travel scholarship to attend the Optics+Photonics conference in San Diego. Samant has received several additional distinctions during his time at OU, including recognition as a top ten finalist from over 300 applicants for the John R. Cameron Young Investigator Symposium by the American Association of Medical Physicists, as an award recipient and regular finalist in OU Biomedical Engineering Symposia, and as a Senior Fellow of the Graduate Teaching Academy at the OU Center for Teaching Excellence.
Samant is currently working on developing x-ray induced acoustic computed tomography, a novel biomedical and structural imaging modality. Samant’s research has been published in the Journal of Biomedical Optics, Applied Physics letters, and IEEE transactions in Medical Imaging. He is also listed as a co-inventor on two patents, and has presented at numerous international and local conferences.
SPIE awards education scholarships from applicants around the world for their potential for long-range contribution to optics and photonics or related fields. Award-winning applicants were evaluated and selected and approved by the SPIE Scholarship Committee.