Lightwave Lab News 
	•	Vinayak Venkataraman Awarded John Ogden Bigelow Jr. Prize in Electrical Engineering. 
		This prize is in memory of Lieutenant John Ogden Bigelow, Jr., U.S.N.R., of the Class of 1942.  It is awarded to the senior who has shown the greatest improvement since entering Princeton. Vinayak did his independent work with Prof. Paul Prucnal on “Modeling Feedback in Photonic Neuromorphic Systems”. 
		Posted May 31, 2011 

	•	Mary Catherine Wen Awarded 2011 Newport Undergraduate Award for Excellence in Photonics
		Mary Catherine Wen, a senior in Electrical Engineering, has been awarded the 2011 Newport Undergraduate Award for Excellence in Photonics.   She started her research during a summer internship at the Rockwell Collins Advanced Photonics Technology Center, where she was instrumental in developing a state-of-the-art stable mode-locked laser with femto-second timing jitter, which was the cornerstone of a broadband high-resolution optical analog-to-digital converter.  She returned to Princeton to pursue her senior thesis, entitled “Adaptive antenna arrays with optical signal processing,” in the Lightwave Communications Research Lab. She demonstrated several techniques for implementing finite impulse response filters using photonics, including adaptive algorithms for real-time feedback and control of the weighting coefficients.  In the words of Professor Prucnal,  “Mary Catherine  was able to achieve the best of both worlds – both a stable and fast convergence in adjusting the weights of the phased array. “ After graduation Mary will be working in the photonics group at the Lockheed Martin Advanced Technology Lab in Cherry Hill, New Jersey.  
		The award is sponsored by the Newport Corporation.  
         Posted May 31, 2011  
	•	Four EE juniors, Nicole Rafidi, Mitchell Nahmias, Alex Tait, and William Herlands, who did independent study projects in the lab presented their work at 22nd Annual Workshop on Interconnections within High Speed Digital Systems, Santa Fe, NM.
	◦	Nicole Rafidi, "High Performance All-Optical Thresholding for High-Speed Interconnects"
	◦	Mitchell Nahmias, "Constructing Terahertz Spike Processors -- Improving the Photonic Neuron"
	◦	Alex Tait, "Analysis of Hybrid Spike Coding for High-Speed Networking"
	◦	William Herlands, "Intelligent Sensor Interconnection Networks Performing Signal Classification"  
		Posted May 27, 2011  
	•	John Chang's essay on his senior thesis in EE has appeared in Quintessentially Princeton. Link  Posted March 8, 2011  
	•	A Princeton news story about the "Celebrate Princeton Inventions" on our lab's RF cancellation project. Link  About the "Celebrate Princeton Inventions" event: Link  Posted Dec 7, 2010  
	•	Maddie Lu and Professor Prucnal are on Princeton News and Princeton EE News:  Princeton News: Princeton named cybersecurity hub by National Security Agencies. Link  Engineering News: Link  Princeton EE News: EE Grad Students and Faculty part of the Cybersecurity Hub at Princeton Link  Posted Nov 30, 2010  
	•	PRISM's Center for Network Science and Applications being designated by the NSA as a "National Center of Academic Excellence in Information Assurance Research (CAE-R).  In the photo (from left to right): Mr. John Mathews (Executive Secretary, Committee on National Security Systems), Ms. Roberta Stempfley (on left - American flag side, National Cyber Security Division Director, Department of Homeland Security), The Honorable Howard A. Schmidt, CISSP, CSSLP, Special Assistant to the President and Cybersecurity Coordinator, Paul Prucnal, Ms. Debora Plunkett (on right - Maryland flag side, Information Assurance Director, National Security Agency)     Posted Sept 3, 2010  
	•	Several EE Seniors including Maria Kang, Shobana Venkat,and Ryan Irwin are working on the Photonic Neuron Project for their independent work project. This project is a collaboration between Princeton's Electrical Engineering Department and Lockheed Martin's Advanced Technology Laboratories. The Photonic Neuron Project is a pioneering effort in the intersection of photonics and neurology. One of the main tasks is to simulate a multi-neuronal network to mimic the tail-flip escape response of a crayfish using optical processing components. This escape behavior represents the fastest behaviors executed by animals in nature. The circuit, mimicking optimized neural behavior present in animal defense mechanisms, offers a good model for a high-speed, intelligent decision circuit which could be scaled for aerospace and military applications. Undergraduate work on this project is supported by Lockheed Martin and by the Essig Engright Fund.     Posted June 7, 2010  
	•	John Chang won the J. Rich Steers Award from the New York City Post of the Society of American Military Engineers, for outstanding academic achievement in the engineering program.  Posted Feb 5, 2010  
	•	Professor Prucnal and John Suarez are interviewed by WPRB. Link  Posted Oct 20, 2009  
	•	Mable Fok is interviewed by ACP 2009 about our lab's project on "Physical Layer Security in Data Networks Using Optical Signal Processing" Link  Posted June 20, 2009  
	•	Professor Prucnal was awarded the Distinguished Teacher Award from Princeton's School of Engineering and Applied Science at the Class Day Ceremony on June 1, 2009. Link  Posted June 5, 2009  
	•	Mable Fok's work on optical steganography is high-lighted in Laser Focus World magazine - "Optical steganography hides stealth signal" Link  Posted April 15, 2009  
	•	Bryan Bosworth '09, who did independent study in our lab on our photonic neuron project in Fall'08, received the Peter Mark Prize at the Electrical Engineering Department Class Day Ceremony on June 1. The prize was awarded for "the best undergraduate research project" in the area of electronic materials and devices.  
	•	The Lightwave Lab was recently has received an award from the Essig Enright Fund of the Princeton Neuroscience Institute for its proposal on the photonic neuron to support undergraduate research in this area for the next three years.  
	•	Professor Prucnal's research is highlighted in Princeton Weekly Bulletin. Link