Internal Grants

ARL Cooperative

Through the ARL Cooperative Agreement Grants program, Boston University and the Army Research Laboratory have established a broad-based, effective, and productive mesh of collaborative, interdisciplinary research projects. Over the last five years, Photonics Center faculty received more than $5M in funding from the Center's Army Research Lab Cooperative Agreement. The supported research spanned a wide variety of photonics disciplines, with a concentration on research applicable to solving Department of Defense issues such as chemical and biological detection and novel detectors.

For FY06 and the start of the new ARL Grant, it is a strategic goal of the Center to promote the same level of collaboration in activities related to our new biophotonics initiative. To that end, a collaborative research initiation sub award will be made to the faculty member who is to be supported by the Photonics Center New Faculty Initiative Program in FY06. The award will be contingent upon submission by the faculty member of a detailed technical proposal for a research project to be conducted in collaboration with a research counterpart at ARL. Approval of the project by the Center Director and by the ARL program technical point of contact (Dr. George Simonis) will be required before approval is granted.

The Center's specific plans include FY06 ARL Cooperative Agreement project support to assist with academic equipment and program startup costs for a new tenured or tenure-track faculty position complementary to our core intellectual and academic strengths at Boston University. These areas of strength are classified broadly to include:

  • Biophotonic imaging, the study of optical imaging and how it is used to understand biological problems, including microscopy, subsurface probing of tissue, adaptive optics for retinal and neurobiological imaging.
  • Biomedical photonics, the study of light-based systems for applications including detecting and treating disease, probing molecules and cells, sensing pathogens, microsurgery and wound healing. Efforts in this category will have the discriminating leverage the new BL4 (Biohazard Level 4) facility being developed with federal funding at Boston University to reinforce our position as a national leader in Biophotonics as applied to defense.

To attract, support, and retain the most promising academic researchers in the field of biophotonics, the Center will establish a New Faculty Initiative Program, comprised of three parts: support for major research equipment, support for academic research initiation, and support for collaborative research work with ARL. To help accelerate the scholarly career of a new biophotonics faculty member hired by one of the Center's cognate Departments, the Center will apportion some of its ARL Cooperative Agreement Grant to support travel, laboratory development, summer research salary and graduate student stipends for the new faculty member.

Template for ARL Video-Conference

The following should be used as a guide to creating the slides for your in-depth video-conference presentation with ARL. Please note the following requirements:

  1. A digital copy of the Power Point presentation must be sent to Helen Fawcett 24 – 48 hours in advance of the appointed time for your ARL Video-Conference. This presentation must be in the hands of the people at ARL to allow for a smooth discussion.
  2. Also note that Power Point is the preferred software to use.
  3. Please number each slide of the presentation including the title page, this can be done by choosing the “Insert” pull down menu, then selecting “Slide Number." Ensure that the check mark next to Slide Number is present and then select “Apply to All.”
  4. For your convenience, you may save this link and use as the base for your presentation.

For more information about the ARL Cooperative contact Leah Schatzberg (lzs@bu.edu)

Student Travel

The Photonics Center is pleased to announce the availability of matching funds for student travel to professional symposia at which their work will be presented. The Center will support up to $500 of travel expenses that are matched by grant or Department funds provided by a Photonics Center faculty member.

Eligibility:

  1. Applicants must be enrolled as a full-time student in the University, must have a principal research advisor who is a member of the Photonics Center faculty, and must be presenting work on a photonics-related topic.
  2. A paper must be accepted for presentation and must be on the conference agenda, with the student listed as an author.

Procedures:

  1. Awards are made on a first-come first-served basis subject to availability of funds.
  2. Awards must be requested by the student via email at least at least two (2) weeks in advance of the travel date. Email requests should be sent to Meghan Foley (megfoley@bu.edu). In the request, the following information is required:
    1. Name, location, date, and website address of the conference or symposium at which the work will be presented;
    2. Paper title, abstract, and complete list of authors;
    3. Confirmation that the paper has been accepted;
    4. Source of funds to be matched (grant number or Dept. source number).
    5. Full name and email address of the Photonics Center faculty member sponsoring the student. Students must ask the sponsor to confirm support through email to megfoley@bu.edu ("Confirming support" is sufficient text from the sponsor. No justification is necessary).
  3. Students will be notified within a week of their request whether it has been approved.
  4. In the presentation, supported students must identify their affiliation with the Boston University's Photonics Center, and must acknowledge travel support.
  5. Upon returning, students must fill out a "Travel and Business Expense Report" for their home department (or whichever department sponsored their travel). They MUST inform their financial administrator that a matching grant of up to $500 is being paid by Photonics. The administrator should send the completed travel expense report to Meghan Foley, in Photonics 936, x8-4438. Meghan will fill in the Photonics account information for the appropriate amount and send it on for processing.

OTD Awards

Office of Technology Development Ignition and Launch Awards http://www.bu.edu/otd/awards/index.html

Provost's Awards