The Biophotonics Summer School (previously the Nano-Biophotonics Summer School) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign was offered for four years in the period from 2009 to 2012, and was mainly supported by the Network for Computational Nanotechnology at Illinois and the National Science Foundation. Over 170 attendees came from more than 30 American universities and 15 countries (including South Africa, China, France, Poland, Finland, United Kingdom, South Korea, Belgium, Sweden, Canada, etc.). The number of female attendees comprised only 10% in the first year, but steadily rose to over 38% in 2012. A book based on the presentations at the 2009 Biophotonics Summer School was published in 2010 and is available from McGraw-Hill (Nanobiophotonics, 2010). Although the previous support is no longer available, due to the growing interest in this Biophotonics Summer School and the broad need and impact on biomedical research, we are planning to offer it again in 2014. The Biophotonics Summer School, will be a two week intensive interdisciplinary course covering the principles of Biophotonics for upper level undergraduate students, graduate students, and postdoctoral associates from the United States as well as internationally. The course will begin by equipping students with a mathematical """"""""toolbox"""""""" of skills, as well as introductions to the related physics and biology. This will transiton to in-depth lectures covering cutting-edge research, as well as practical and clinical applications of Biophotonics. The Summer School will include laboratory tours as well as several hands- on lab sessions. There will also be several computational sessions, training students on how to use the simulation tools on nanoHUB.org as well as with MATLAB and Optica. At the end of the second week, students will present their current research conducted in their home labs. The lectures will be given by leading faculty and senior staff from the University of Illinois at Urban-Champaign, as well as from leading institutions across the United States. We are strongly committed to promoting the participation of underrepresented groups in science and engineering. According to the statistics from our previous Summer Schools and the Biophotonics and Optics fields in general, the number of female students enrolled in optical imaging courses is significantly higher than the overall number of female students in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and the College of Engineering, overall. This suggests that optics appeals to women more than other engineering areas, and can perhaps be used in the future to attract and retain female students in engineering. We paid special attention to gender diversity of our attendees, and as a result, the number of female attendees comprised only 10% in the first year, but steadily rose to over 32% in 2012. 1
The Biophotonics Summer School at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign was offered for four years in the period from 2009 to 2012, with over 170 attendees from more than 30 American universities and 15 countries (including South Africa, China, France, Poland, Finland, United Kingdom, South Korea, Belgium, Sweden, Canada, etc.). Our proposal is requesting support from NIH/NIBIB to allow the continuation of our two week intensive interdisciplinary course, covering the principles of Biophotonics for graduate students and postdoctoral associates from the United States and internationally. 1
