Symposium award seeds $150,000 each into up-and-coming Mizzou research

For the first time, Applied Optoelectronics Inc., and the University of Missouri College of Engineering teamed up in an attempt to uncover novel methods of chemical sensing. AOI and Mizzou paired to provide two winning proposals from MU College of Engineering research teams with $150,000 each in seed money as part of the first-ever AOI Sensing Symposium Award. The competition was held at the AOI Sensing Symposium on Feb. 10 at the Bond Life Sciences Center at the University of Missouri.

“This is a win for our students and faculty, recipients of a fantastic opportunity to produce state-of-the-art applications with a company on the cutting edge,” MU College of Engineering Dean Elizabeth Loboa said.

The victorious teams were:

Yangyang Chen, Jian Lin, Hussein Nassar and Guoliang Huang pose with Dean Elizabeth Loboa; AOI Founder, CEO and President Thompson Lin and AOI CFO Stephan Murry. Their winning project was titled “Bimodal Waveguide Interferometric Sensors by Periodic Power-Wavelength Modulations of Laser Diodes.” Photos courtesy of Jennifer Hollis/MU Engineering.

Edward Kinzel and Mahmoud Almasri pose with Dean Elizabeth Loboa; AOI Founder, CEO and President Thompson Lin and AOI CFO Stephan Murry. Their winning project was titled “Manufacturing Low Cost Plasmonic Sensors for Chemical and Biological Sensing.”

• Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Associate Professor Guoliang Huang, Assistant Professor Jian Lin and postdoctoral researcher Hussein Nassar: “Bimodal Waveguide Interferometric Sensors by Periodic Power-Wavelength Modulations of Laser Diodes”
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• Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Associate Professor Mahmoud Almasri and Missouri S&T Assistant Professor Edward Kinzel: “Manufacturing Low Cost Plasmonic Sensors for Chemical and Biological Sensing”

For this first-of-its-kind event, College of Engineering researchers submitted proposals, and the four finalists gave 20-minute oral presentations judged by MU Engineering alumnus and AOI Founder, President and Chief Executive Officer Thompson Lin; AOI Chief Financial Officer Stefan Murry; MU Interim Vice Chancellor for Research, Graduate Studies and Economic Development Mark McIntosh and Missouri Innovation Center President and CEO Bill Turpin. Potential research areas included biosensors for homeland security, lasers for remote area scanning, chemical detection for environmental purposes, in-situ sensing, medical bio-sensing, process control, agriculture and more.

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