Monash University, Victoria, Aus., Wins S$5,000 Bursary Award in Edmund Optics® Singapore Campaign for Southeast Asia


November 23, 2009, Barrington, N.J - Edmund Optics® (EO) announced today that Monash University, Victoria, Australia, has been awarded the top prize of S$5,000 (SGD) in the Edmund Optics University Bursary Program for 2009, part of the Singapore campaign for Southeast Asia. The award was granted to Monash University because of Monash's impressive optical and astronomical research and teaching programs of their School of Physics at their Victoria, Australia location.

Finalists for the award were selected based completing an online entry form where participating universities provided information about their programs in optics and physics, the types of programs their students were engaged in, and the extent to which optics products, systems and assemblies produced by Edmund Optics were useful and valuable to the University's programs, projects and students.

In announcing this year's winner, Edmund Optics also disclosed that next year's winning prize in 2010 would be doubled to S$10,000 (SGD), based on the success and huge response to this year's program.

While announcing the current winner, Clark Harris, Edmund Optics Marketing Director for Asia, expressed enthusiastically, "Monash University is most certainly deserving of this award because it is deeply immersed in a range of experiments at their distinguished research facilities, including their new atomic and molecular optics labs, and their partnership with the Australian Synchrotron.

Upon receiving the award Dr Lincoln Turner said, "We are delighted that Edmund Optics has chosen Monash Physics to receive this bursary." Dr Turner intends to invest the bursary in a high-stability HeNe laser to create a new undergraduate lab experiment on quantum noise and optical measurement.

Monash University is Australia's largest university with approximately 55,000 students. It has a total of eight campuses, including six in Victoria, one in Malaysia and one in South Africa. Monash is a member of the prestigious "Group of Eight," comprising some of the most research-intensive universities in Australia.

At Monash's School of Physics, courses offered with substantial optics components include "electromagnetism, light and entropy" at the second year level and "photon physics" at the third year level which includes photonics, synchrotron physics and optics. Specialized courses are offered at Honors level in electron diffraction and x-ray physics. Within the past year, Monash has introduced new interferometry experiment into the undergraduate teaching laboratory, joining more advanced experiments on Fourier optics, Brownian motion and optical tweezers at the third year level Most recently, Monash appointed a new professor of Experimental Physics, Prof. Kristian Helmerson, formerly of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, in Washington, D.C.

About EO:

Edmund Optics® (EO) is a leading producer of optics, imaging, and photonics technology for R&D, electronics, semiconductor, pharmaceutical, biomedical, and military markets around the globe. EO is the world's largest supplier of off-the-shelf optical components. Customers can purchase items by contacting EO at 1-800-363-1992, via the new interactive catalog, the website at www.edmundoptics.com, or requesting their print catalog.

Company Contact:
Kirsten Bjork-Jones
Director Global Marketing Communications
Edmund Optics®, Inc.
101 East Gloucester Pike
Barrington, NJ 08007 U.S.A.
Phone: 1-800-363-1992
Fax: 1-856-573-6295
email: kbjork-jones@edmundoptics.com

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