Cobey McGinnis at the University of North Carolina Charlotte has been recognised with the Norman Edmund Inspiration Award for work on a single-pixel hyperspectral camera.
McGinnis’s camera is designed to identify cancer tissue, with the aim to give surgeons real-time margin assessment of tumours.
Edmund Optics (EO) has announced its educational award winners for 2019, with gold, silver and bronze recipients in the Americas and Europe receiving EO products valued at €35,000. The Norman Edmund Inspiration Award winner receives $5,000 in EO products.
The awards recognise outstanding undergraduate and graduate optics research in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics at non-profit colleges and universities worldwide.
Edmund Optics said that McGinnis’s project ‘demonstrates an impactful, applicable research opportunity in the field of optics that could lead to more positive outcomes for cancer patients who require surgery.’
Other winners in the educational award programme include: Emily Bedell at the University of Colorado Boulder for an in-situ fluorimeter to detect microbial risk in drinking water in low-income areas; Travis Sawyer at the University of Arizona for an endoscope to detect oesophageal cancer; and Guanjun Tan of the University of Central Florida for work on optical challenges in head-mounted displays.
In Europe, the winners are: Jan Sperrhake of Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena, Institute of Applied Physics, Germany for a medical sensor for monitoring new-born babies; Andreas Riedo of the University of Bern, Switzerland for a detector to look for signatures of extra-terrestrial life; and Alejandro Madrid Sánchez of Vrije Universiteit Brussels, Belgium for a 3D printing solution for wound dressings.
