Delaware State University’s Optics program is getting a financial boost – a $5 million grant from the National Science Foundation’s Center for Research Excellence in Science and Technology.
D-S-U is one of only 35 schools nationwide to have a PhD program in Optics and the only Historically Black College or University in that group.
The research grant will allow DSU’s Optics program to build on work over past 5 years that’s delivered technology used on NASA’s Mars Curiosity Rover, and innovative patents.
Dr. Noureddine Melikechi, Dean of DSU’s college of Mathematics, Natural Sciences, and Technology and the Optics program's founding director, calls it an opportunity to maintain the program's growth.
“we have created new degree programs, bio engineering, optical engineering, and we have, particularly in physics, in the department of physics, a number of students that went up by 3-fold in 5 years. Now that a time when the number of students in physics at some universities are dropping exponentially," said Dr. Melikechi.
DSU competed with 38 other proposals and was one of 3 grants funded by the National Science Foundation.
DSU’s President Dr. Harry Williams says that's an indication of how strong the program's reputation has become.
“We’re building a team here that’s moving this institution forward, in a very positive way that will have an incredible impact not only in the state of Delaware but all over the world," said Dr. Williams.
Over the past 6 years, the DSU Optics program has secured 23 million dollars in federal funding, and last year the State of Delaware allocated 10 million dollars to build a new optics research facility on campus. That facility is currently in the design phase.