Our Views: LSU scientist wins big grant

Congratulations to LSU Professor Georgios Veronis. He has won a $400,000 grant from the National Science Foundation, from a category of grants that recognizes promising work by scientists early in their careers.

But don’t ask us to explain what this means: “Veronis’ plan consists of developing physics-based models for 3-D plasmonic waveguides and devices and using these models to develop optimization techniques of multi-parameter nanoplasmonic devices that greatly reduce the required number of computationally expensive full-wave device simulations.”

An assistant professor in electrical and computer engineering at the Center for Computation and Technology, Veronis’ work — if obscure to most of us — can provide potential breakthroughs in optics and renewable energy sources, an LSU statement on the award said.

Veronis is a graduate of the National Technical University of Athens in Greece and holds his advanced degrees in electrical engineering from Stanford University.

He will use some of the grant to demonstrate the potential of plasmonics to high school students and encourage their study in engineering and mathematics, another example of how state universities can be of value to Louisiana beyond their own academic cloisters.

We congratulate him on this significant award.

Comments

1) Comment by Bouncer - 05/03/2013

Congratulations are in order. Given what's going on with the funding of higher education, it will be a miracle if he opts to stay at LSU, most especially if his research advances. I wouldn't blame him if he took his grant money and left since the average denizen of this state doesn't give two cents about "research" going on at LSU because they cannot see any "benefit" to it. They think of the University as a provider of football and a "job training" vocational school.