Brau awarded FEL Prize in Rome
Physics professor Charles A. Brau recently received the FEL Prize
at the 18th annual International Free-Electron Laser Conference in Rome.
"I am enormously pleased to be included with a group of individuals
I respect very highly," says Brau, who has served on the conference's
executive committee. More than 250 scientists worldwide attended the conference
in August 1996. The FEL Prize includes a monetary award and the responsibility
for delivering the first plenary address at the 19th International FEL conference
in Beijing in 1997.
Brau, co-inventor of the excimer laser, has made major contributions to
the field of laser research. A former FEL project manager at the Los Alamos
National Laboratory, he left the Quantum Institute at Santa Barbara in 1988
to head the FEL research facility at Vanderbilt. His expertise centers on
laser construction and electron-beam physics, and his contributions to FEL
projects at Los Alamos and at Vanderbilt were cited by the award committee.
Whitaker grant supports optics research
The establishment this spring of the Whitaker Laboratory in Biomedical Optics
in the Department of Biomedical Engineering and the partial support of two
new faculty members with expertise in biomedical optics, as well as support
for graduate students, will enhance the collaboration with the Free-Electron
Laser Center and the School of Medicine. The lab will develop new optical
science technology for a wide variety of medical applications, including
cancer, eye disease and cardiovascular problems.
The first faculty appointment will be made by January 1997, according to
Thomas R. Harris, chair of the department of biomedical engineering, who
adds that space in the remodeled Stevenson building is committed to the
new biomedical labs. The second appointment is expected by July 1997. The
support is from a grant of about $1 million from the Whitaker Foundation,
a private, nonprofit foundation that primarily supports research and education
in biomedical engineering.
Keck Center gets $7.45 million ONR grant
The W.M. Keck Foundation Free-Electron Laser Center at Vanderbilt was notified
in early October that it had received a grant of $7.45 million from the
Office of Naval Research's Medical Free-Electron Laser Program. The grant
period covers two years, beginning March 15, 1997. This is the fourth consecutive
center grant awarded by the ONR.
The grant will be used to sustain ongoing FEL research, which includes
the following projects and principal investigators: monochromatic x-rays,
Frank Carroll; cell biology and ophthalmology, Vivien Casagrande and Karen
Joos; neurosurgery, Michael Copeland; dermatology, Jeff Davidson; molecular
biophysics, Glenn Edwards; FEL development, Bill Gabella; otolaryngology,
Gaelyn Garrett; materials and hard tissue modification, Richard Haglund;
wound healing in neural tissue, James McKanna, and materials modification,
Norman Tolk.
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This document created November 18, 1996