Optical Research Associates of Pasadena, Calif., has announced the winners of its annual Student Optical Design Competition. Awards totaling $4000 were presented to students in North America working toward bachelor’s, master’s or doctoral degrees who utilized the company’s CODE V or LightTools software in their optical design or engineering research. The 2007 top winners included Manuel Guizar-Sicairos, a PhD candidate from the University of Rochester in New York, for his paper “Design of 360 Degree Panoramic Camera Lens using CODE V,” and Tobias Schmid, a PhD candidate from the University of Central Florida, for his paper “Optical Design of a Grazing Incidence Collector Mirror for EUV Lithography Using LightTools.” Another award was presented to Joshua Jin Kim, a BS candidate from the University of Arizona, for his paper titled “Optical Vortex Coronagraph Using CODE V.”