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Honoring Joseph Izatt

The event also served as a moment of tribute to Joseph Izatt, chair of the Pratt School Department of Biomedical Engineering.  Izatt had died earlier in the week, and one of the last things he did was to record a short video for the event describing his work with optical coherence tomography (OCT), a system that gives ophthalmologists and eye surgeons unprecedented detailed images that guide diagnosis and treatment decisions.

Professor Izatt’s video was shown during the Centennial Symposium - Light in Service of Society, a series of 'Lightning Talk' videos by FIP faculty, highlighting Duke's legacy in photonics research and its societal benefits across past, present, and future. Tuan Vo-Dinh also recorded a tribute video, which played before Izatt’s.

“We wanted to show the magic and power of light,” said Tuan Vo-Dinh, R. Eugene and Susie E. Goodson Distinguished Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Professor of Chemistry, and director of the Fitzpatrick Institute for Photonics.  “And we wanted to show how that power is being used by Duke researchers to benefit society. This work is part of the legacy of Duke, as we celebrate our centennial. We brought the community here to show what we’re doing and hoping that some of the young people will see the educational value and become interested in the field.”

Duke has a long tradition as a leader in research on light. One Duke alumnus, Charles Townes, went on to win the Nobel Prize for Physics for his discovery involving lasers. Over the past two decades, the institute has further elevated optical research at Duke to make the university one of the world leaders in the field.

At workstations throughout the open house, photonics graduate students described how work in the FIP’s lab is advancing science to benefit society.

Among the sights was a rare glassfrog, which has the unusual ability to . This amazing feat protects them from predators at night but also may provide new tools for imaging technology.

At one station, biomedical engineering graduate student Márcia Cunha Dos Santos described how institute faculty are developing , creating low-cost medical tools that are transforming care for breast cancer and other diseases in low-resource communities around the world.

Dos Santos also cited the program’s ethos of using creative interdisciplinary collaboration with global health scholars to develop tools that are available to many.

“The program is working to bring affordable technology to communities with little resources,” she said. “In doing so, people have improved access to better health care. Some of these settings are challenging, so we’re doing complex work that requires engineering but also other skills to work with the community so their needs are best met.”

Engineering to explore the wonder of light was a common theme at the various stations. At a table on light polarization, graduate student Robert Trout shared his path to studying intraocular surgical imagery, which provides surgeons with real-time images of eye surgery.