In 1999 the LEOS Board of Governors focused on encouraging students in their studies in electrical engineering. They established the LEOS Graduate Student Fellowship program to provide fellowships to outstanding LEOS student members pursuing graduate education within the LEOS field of interest (electro-optics, lasers, photonics, optics or closely related fields). Applicants are normally in their penultimate year of study and receive the award for their final year and must be LEOS student members. Recipients are apportioned geographically in approximate proportion to the numbers of student members in each of the main geographical regions (Americas, Europe/Mid-East/Africa, Asia/Pacific). There are 12 Fellows per year. Each LEOS Graduate Fellow receives $5000 and a travel grant of up to $2500 to attend the LEOS Annual Meeting to accept their award.

This year marks the fifth year of the LEOS Graduate Student Fellowship program, and LEOS is proud to present profiles of this year’s recipients. Each student submitted a nomination package to the LEOS Executive Office with the following information: (1) a nominating letter by a LEOS member. Where no LEOS members are able to support an application, the referees may consist of the Head of Department and one other full professor familiar with the applicant's work; (2) a one-page statement of purpose by student describing her/his education and research interests and accomplishments; (3) the student’s IEEE member number; (4) a one-page biographical sketch of student, including all degrees received and dates; (5) one copy of student's educational transcripts; (6) two reference letters from individuals familiar with the student's research and educational credentials.

This year, nomination packages are due at the LEOS Executive Office by 30 May 2004, and recipients will be notified by 15 July 2004. The Fellowships will be presented at the LEOS Annual Meeting in November 2004. Please send completed package to:

IEEE/LEOS Graduate Student Fellowship Program
445 Hoes Lane
Piscataway, NJ 08854

LEOS is proud to present profiles of our 2003 LEOS Graduate Student Fellows:

SAMEER BHALOTRA received his bachelor's degree in Chemistry & Physics from Harvard University. After a year away from research, he entered the Applied Physics Ph.D. program at Stanford University and was awarded the Regina Casper Stanford Graduate Fellowship. Mr. Bhalotra is currently working on developing adaptive optical microsensors with new types of microelectromechanical (MEMS) and semiconductor components, under the supervision of David A. B. Miller. He has recently been awarded the 2003 Optical Society of America - Dekker Foundation Student Scholarship and the 2003 IEEE Lasers & Electro-Optics Society Graduate Student Fellowship.

JUNG-HO CHUNG received the B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering with honors from Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea, in 1997, and the M.S. degree in Electrical and Computer Engin-eering from Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, in 2001, where he is currently pursuing the Ph.D. degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering.

Until 1999, he worked on code-division multiple-access (CDMA) communication systems at KTF, Seoul, Korea. At Purdue University, he is doing research in the Ultrafast Optics and Optical Fiber Communications Laboratory, supervised by Professor A. M. Weiner, on space-time processing of ultrafast optical pulses, ultrafast pulse measurement techniques, and the optoelectronics for the wavelength-selective optical signal detection. He also worked at TyCom, Ltd., Eatontown, NJ as a summer intern in 2001, where he joined in testing various components for the undersea optical communication transmission.

He is holder of four Korean patents, three related to CDMA networks and one active noise control. He presented three conference talks and published three journal or proceeding papers up to now. He received the LEOS Student Travel Award in 2001. His current project related to wavelength-selective detectors was selected in 2003 by the Photonics Technology Access Program from the Optoelectronics Industry Development Association.

JAN HENDRIK DEN BESTEN was born in The Netherlands. He studied physics and Dutch literature at the University of Groningen. After graduation in 1999 he joined the Opto-Electronic Devices Group in Eindhoven, where the topics of his research are multi-wavelength lasers and Mach-Zehnder modulators on InP. He worked on the development of the technology that is needed for the integration of passive optical components with optical amplifiers and modulators. As an example, he demonstrated RF-modulators and several discretely tunable (ring) lasers with a large tuning range. His current efforts are on the realization on a single chip of multi-wavelength lasers with integrated, external modulators for 40 GHz frequency modulation.

CHEE SEONG GOH received the B.Sc. degree (first class honors) and M.S. degrees in physics from University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in 1998 and 2000, respectively. In year 2000, he was awarded with Japanese Monbusho scholarship to pursue his Ph.D. degree at the Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology (RCAST), University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan. He is expected to graduate by March 2004. His main research is centred on the tunability of fibre Bragg Grating based devices to enable DWDM network flexibility and reconfigurability. During the project, he has authored and co-authored over 20 papers in international journals and conferences. He was also a visiting research assistant at the Optoelectronics Research Centre (ORC), University of Southampton, United Kingdom for 3 months in 2002. His research interests include advance fabrication of fibre gratings, fibre laser, and optical network systems.

Mr. Goh is a student member of the IEEE LEOS. Recently, he was awarded with the prestigious IEEE Lasers and Electro-Optic Society (LEOS) Graduate Student Fellowship 2003.

JULIET TARA GOPI-NATH was educated in Boston, Massachusetts and Minneapolis, Minnesota. She graduated from the University of Minnesota in 1998 with a B. S. in Electrical Engineering, summa cum laude. She was awarded the M. S. degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2000. She is currently pursuing her Ph.D. with Professor Erich Ippen at M.I.T. in ultrafast optics. Her research interests include: semiconductor saturable absorbers, femtosecond solid-state and fiber lasers, semiconductor optical amplifiers, and microstructure fibers.

"In my spare time, I enjoy hiking, pottery and playing viola. I currently study viola with a faculty member at the New England Conservatory of Music and play in a piano quartet."

"I have received the National Merit Scholarship, the National Science Scholarship, the 3M Engineering Scholarship and the National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship. I am an author or coauthor of 26 journal and conference papers (some recently submitted), and a reviewer for Applied Physics Letters and Optics Letters. I am a student member of the IEEE Lasers and Electro-Optic Society (IEEE/LEOS) and the Optical Society of America (OSA). I am inspired and grateful for the support of the IEEE/LEOS Graduate Fellowship Award."

CHANG-SEOK KIM received the B.S. degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) in 1996 and the M.S. degree in the Department of Information and Com-munications from Kwangju Institute of Science and Technology (K-JIST), Korea in 1999. From 1999 to 2000, he was with Access Network Laboratory, Korea Telecom as a research engineer, where he was involved in design and fabrication of optical communication device and system. He joined the Ph.D. program in the Photonics and Optoelectronics Group, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, John Hopkins University, U.S. in September 2000. His research concerns from the specialty optical fibers to the laser applications using various optical fibers. Special focus lies in the area of tunable multi-wavelength output laser for WDM/OTDM networks, UV lidar spectroscopy, Optical sensing and Biomedical imaging photonics. He has authored or co-authored 13 journal papers and 20 conference papers. He also has 3 international patents including U.S., U.K. Japan, and Korea.

"Being a recipient of the IEEE/LEOS Graduate Student Fellowship is a great honor to me. It will help me pursuit my ultimate objective of being an expert in the laser photonics field to contribute to the overall advance."

IVAN T. LIMA, Jr. received the B.Sc. degree in Electrical Engineering from the Federal Uni-versity of Bahia, Brazil, in December 1995, the M.Sc. degree in Electrical Engineering from the State University of Campinas, Brazil, in March 1998, and the Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering in the field of photonics from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, in December 2003. He worked from 1986 to 1996 in the Bank of Brazil, where he held the position of Advisor of the State Superintendence of Bahia in the area of Information Technology. From August 1998 to July 2003, he was Research Assistant in the Optical Fiber Communications Laboratory at the University of Maryland Baltimore County, in Baltimore, Maryland. He is currently tenure-track Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at North Dakota State University, in Fargo, North Dakota. In addition to the 2003 IEEE LEOS Graduate Student Fellowship Award, he co-authored a paper that won the Venice Summer School 2002 Award. That paper was published in the Proceedings of the 29th European Conference on Optical Communication that was held in Italy in 2003. He has authored and co-authored 18 archival journal papers, 35 conference papers, one book chapter, one U.S. patent, and one software license. His research interests include photonics applied to optical fiber communications and to biology.

YONG LIU received the bachelor degree in 1991 and the Master degree in 1994, both in Opto-electronic Technology Department in University of Electronic Science & Technology of China. In 1991, he was rewarded as an excellent graduated student of Mechanical-Electronic Industry Ministry of China. From 1994 to 2000, he stayed in the same university for teaching and researching. In April 2000, he moved to COBRA Research Institute in Eindhoven Uni-versity of Technology for Ph.D. study, and expected to graduate in April 2004. His research topic is all-optical signal processing in all-optical cross-connect with an emphasis on optical buffering. His research concerns about all-optical buffering, all-optical memories, all-optical wavelength converters and other all-optical signal processing techniques. The aim of this research is to route optical data packets at tera-herze speed without using any electronic control. During his Ph.D. study, he has authored or co-authored more than 30 journal and conference papers.

"It is a great honor for me to receive IEEE/LEOS Graduate Student Fellowship Award. Actually I was a little bit embarrassed to get this award because my research accomplishment is a result of teamwork, I got a lot of help from my colleagues but at last I won this award. So I would say this award is recognition of the research in my group rather than myself. This award will encourage me to continue working for my dream - route optical data packets at tera-herze speed."

REZA MOTAGHIAN NEZAM received his B.S. in Electrical Engin-eering from Sharif University of Techno-logy, Tehran, Iran, in 1995. In fall 1999, he began his M.S. in the Communication Sciences Institute (CSI) of the University of Southern California (USC), Los Angeles, California.

In January 2000, he joined the USC Optical Communications Laboratory, and he is continuing his PhD degree in Electrical Engineering under the supervision of Prof. Alan Willner. He received his M.S. degree in Electrical Engineering in spring 2002. His main research interests include performance monitoring and optical equalization (chromatic dispersion (CD) and polarization-mode dispersion (PMD)), data modulation formats, analog transmission systems, optical code division multiple access (OCDMA) and long-haul WDM transmission. He has investigated how to enhance different PMD and CD monitoring techniques for equalization in the optical communication systems.

Reza Motaghian received honorary recognition from the Ministry of Cultural and Higher Education in Iran for being ranked 56 out of 250,000 exam participants in the national university entrance exam for engineers. In his B.S. studies, he was studying design of different PD and PID controllers for DC and AC motors and implementing fuzzy logic algorithms for an automated guided vehicle. During his Ph.D. program, he has published (or have pending review) more than 40 papers in international journals and conference proceedings, including two invited papers in the IEEE/OSA Journal of Lightwave Technology and Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE) in 2003 and a post-deadline paper at the Optical Fiber Communication Conference (OFC) in 2002. He also has 2 U.S. patents pending. Recently, some of his work on optical performance monitoring has been ranked in notable conferences (including a third ranking at the Conference on Lasers and Electro Optics (CLEO) in 2001, and a second ranking at OFC 2002). He also has served as a reviewer for several journals, including, IEEE Photonics Technology Letters, IEEE J. Selected Topics in Quantum Electronics and the IEEE/OSA Journal of Lightwave Technology.

"Receipt of the LEOS Graduate Fellowship Award is an honor and would assist me in continuing my study and research on designing either optical or electrical equalizer in the optical fiber communication systems."

MARCO PECCIANTI obtained his Master Degree "cum Laude" (full marks and honors) in Electronic Engineering in May 2000 at the University "Roma Tre" (Italy). In March 2001 he joined the PhD program in Electronic Engineering at the University "Roma Tre" with NOOEL (Nonlinear Optics and Optoelectronics Lab) under the supervision of Prof. Gaetano Assanto.

On Sept. 15, 2001 he received an award for young researchers from the Italian Institute for the Physics of the Matter. In 2002 he obtained a Grant from the Italian Society of Liquid Crystals (SICL), and the Award of "56th Scottish Universities Summer School in Physics: Ultrafast-Photonics" (12th Sept. 2002 University of St. Andrews, U.K.) for his work on nonlocal spatial soliton interactions and, more recently in 2003, the "Best Young Physicist" prize "Vincenzo Caglioti" from the "Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei" (Mar. 19, 2003 Italy), for his research on nonlinear optical propagation in liquid crystals. Marco Peccianti is coauthor of more than 35 journal and conference papers and member of the Italian Liquid Crystal Society (SICL), the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), the Laser and Electro Optics Society (LEOS).

His current research interests include theoretical and experimental investigation of nonlinear wave propagation in nonlocal media and liquid crystals, spatial solitons and modulational instability, nonlinear effects under non-coherent excitations, all-optical logic and signal processing. Mr. Peccianti’s goal is a deeper and deeper understanding of field-matter interactions in liquid crystals and in macro-molecular optical media, towards the development of novel devices for optical communications.

"I am very glad to receive the LEOS Fellowship, it is an important goal and encourages me to proceed in my research endeavours. It is always gratifying to be recognized for our efforts."

NIKOS PLEROS received the Diploma of Electrical & Computer Engineering from the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA), Greece, in 2000. In December 2000 he started his Ph.D. in the Photonics Communications Research Laboratory (PCRL), NTUA, under the supervision of Prof. Hercules Avramopoulos, and he is now in the final year of his studies. His research primarily concerns the demonstration of novel concepts in the field of high-speed optical signal processing and packet/burst switching, exploring and exploiting functional capabilities offered by SOA-based optical gates. In collaboration with his colleagues and his advisor, he has successfully demonstrated a variety of optical signal processing subsystems, including a clock recovery circuit for asynchronous packet traffic, a Clock-and-Data Recovery circuit, a header/payload separation module, an optically controlled 2x2 crossbar switch, a half-adder circuit, and a hard-limiter. He has also worked on OTDM/WDM sources, including repetition rate upgrade schemes and SOA-based fiber ring lasers. His long term research goal is to contribute to the implementation and demonstration of the first true photonic packet switch. He has published as author or co-author 15 journal publications, almost all in IEEE journals, including two invited contributions, and 9 articles in conference proceedings, the majority of them being in ECOC and OFC Conferences. In 1993, Mr. Pleros was awarded the 15th prize in the Greek Mathematical Olympiad.

"The LEOS Award is certainly a major recognition for my work that also reflects the innovative research carried out in my laboratory. Given that PCRL is a relative "young" laboratory, I feel that this LEOS award proves in the best way that strong motivation and hard work of a handful of people can create the appropriate environment for high-quality research even in such a short time. The LEOS Award has encouraged me to continue efforts, and I am confident that its prestigious aspect will be also very helpful for my future career".

KENNETH KIN-YIP WONG received combined B.E. degree in electrical engineering and B. S. degree in physics, with honors, from the University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia, in 1997. He received the M.S. degree in electrical engineering from Stanford University, Stanford, CA, in June 1998 and has recently received the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering at Stanford University. He is a member of the Photonics and Networking Research Laboratory at Stanford University. His research field included DWDM systems, SCM optical systems, fiber nonlinearity, and fiber optical parametric amplifiers (OPA). In particular the fiber OPA, which he has contributed towards few post-deadline conference papers in both CLEO and ECOC. He is author or coauthor of 40 journal and conference papers. He also worked in Hewlett-Packard Laboratories as research intern and contributed in projects included parallel optics.

He was the recipient of Optical Society America (OSA) New Focus Student Award in 2003 and IEEE-LEOS Travel Award in both 2001 and 2003. He is the reviewer for OSA Optics Letters, JOSA B, IEEE Photonics Technology Letters and Optics Communications.

"Being one of the recipients of the LEOS Graduate Student Fellowship is a great honor; this award will help me to continue my research in the coming year and contribute towards my goal of being a professional in the research field of photonics."