POSTECH: Mechanical Engineering Students Receive SPIE Scholarship 3 Years in a Row

Minkyung Kim and Sunae So, PhD candidates in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at POSTECH, have been awarded the 2021 Optics and Photonics Education Scholarship from the Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE).

Kim has recently published a paper on the spin hall effect of light (SHEL) with near 100% efficiency using an anisotropic metasurface. So is currently working on intelligent nanophotonics research, specifically on topics of metamaterial design in optics and nano-optics fields, by using data-driven deep learning methods.

SPIE awards the scholarship annually to students who show promise to contribute greatly in the field of optics. This year, a total of 78 students were awarded and Kim and So were the only Korean students selected among the six winners in Asia. Professor Junsuk Rho is advisor to these students and of the two previous awardees, Gwanho Yoon (2019) and Inki Kim (2020).

Founded in 1955, SPIE is the most prestigious society in optics and photonics in the world with serves 255,000 constituents from 183 countries.