EECS Graduate student wins IEEE Fellowship

Pedram Z. Dashti, a graduate student in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science department, was recently awarded a $5,000 IEEE Lasers and Electro Optic Society (LEOS) fellowship. The annual award is based on research achievements of graduate students working in the field of electro-optic, lasers, photonics, or closely related fields. Only 12 fellowships are awarded each year world-wide and Pedram Dashti is the first ever recipient of this prestigious student award from UC Irvine. The award also includes a $2,500 travel award for the recipients to attend the LEOS annual meeting where the fellowship will be presented.

Mr. Dashti, currently a PhD candidate, started his graduate studies in UCI in Fall 2001 as an MS/PhD student under supervision of Professor Henry P. Lee in the FOCUS lab working in fiber optic grating device. He received his Master Degree in March 2003. During his graduate studies, Mr. Dashti has worked on all-fiber acousto-optic tunable filters. He has developed and analyzed a novel dual grating device which enables one to control, detect, and manipulate the polarization of light wave inside the fiber electronically, resulting in an ultra-compact and potentially low-cost solution to many monitoring applications in optical network and environmental, chemical and bio sensors.