Malley Richardson Awarded 2023 Teddi C. Laurin Scholarship for Research in Optofluidics

Malley Richardson, a mechanical engineering student at the University of British Columbia (UBC), has been awarded the 2023 Teddi C. Laurin Scholarship for her contributions to the field of optics and photonics. Richardson is actively engaged in optofluidics R&D and is working to develop optofluidic sensors for the health sector. Her areas of interest include the development of lab-on-a-chip instrumentation and organ-on-a-chip technologies.

Richardson earned the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada Undergraduate Student Research Award in 2022, and she opted to pursue the International Research Experience Program Summer 2022 Scholarship of Excellency for her work in biophotonics. She was later awarded an internship at the Technical University of Darmstadt, during which she developed organ-on-a-chip technologies and optimized print parameters for laser-induced drop-on-demand bioprinters. The internship culminated in a public presentation to the Institute of Printing Science and Technology.

Malley Richardson, a mechanical engineering student at the University of British Columbia (UBC), has been awarded the 2023 Teddi C. Laurin Scholarship for her contributions to the field of optics and photonics. She is set to begin a master’s-level program in applied science at UBC in the fall, where she will continue her research in the areas of optofluidics and bioinstrumentation.

Richardson joined the lab of UBC assistant professor of electrical engineering Christopher Collier as an optofluidics research assistant last year. Collier credits Richardson as the first person at UBC-Okanagan to measure a microchip capillary electrophoresis signal. Richardson, Collier said, played a fundamental role in establishing the group’s optofluidic laboratory at the university.

In her current work, Richardson focuses on the biomedical applications of microcapillary electrophoresis coupled with fluorescence spectroscopy for the detection of analytes in breast milk. She serves as the primary researcher on the project and said that she plans to continue to focus on bio-optics as she continues her academic journey.

“Photonics Media congratulates Malley Richardson on receiving the 2023 Teddi C. Laurin Scholarship,” said Tom Laurin, president and CEO of Photonics Media. “Already a standout for her significant contributions in optofluidics, Malley has a bright future ahead. We are eager to see what she accomplishes in the next phases of her career.”

Richardson said she plans to put funding from the scholarship toward textbooks, tuition, and fees. Richardson is set to begin a master’s-level program in applied science at UBC in the fall. She has experience working with with microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) devices, photolithography, spectroscopy, and optoelectronics. Richardson is currently the lead author of a paper targeted for publication in the journal Applied Optics. She is scheduled to present on related research at SPIE Optics + Photonics 2023 in San Diego this summer.

Photonics Media partners with SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics, to fund the Teddi C. Laurin Scholarship to raise awareness of optics and photonics, and to foster growth and success in the photonics industry by supporting students involved in photonics. The scholarship is awarded yearly in memory of Teddi C. Laurin, the founder of Laurin Publishing and Photonics Media.