Midya Parto, an assistant professor at UCF’s College of Optics and Photonics (CREOL), has received two prestigious early-career research awards from the U.S. Army and U.S. Air Force totaling $849,867.

Parto received a $405,000 Early Career Program Award from the U.S. Army Research Office and a $444,867 Young Investigator Program Award from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research.

Together, the awards recognize Parto’s potential as an emerging leader in optics and photonics while supporting fundamental research with potential applications in sensing, information processing and computing.

The Air Force award will support Parto’s project, “Non-equilibrium Thermodynamics of Optical Information Systems”. The research will explore the fundamental physical laws that govern the acquisition and manipulation of information in photonic systems, with applications in sensing and information processing using light.

The Army Research Office award entitled “Ferroelectric Photonic Memories (FePM) based on AlScN” aims to develop advanced photonic memory devices and structures in the emerging scandium-doped aluminum nitride platform. Such memory devices can serve as key elements in the future programmable photonic integrated circuits (PPICs) that can operate in an energy-efficient manner under harsh conditions.

The Air Force Office of Scientific Research’s Young Investigator Program supports early-career scientists and engineers who demonstrate exceptional ability and promise. The program is intended to foster creative basic research while helping researchers engage with scientific and engineering challenges relevant to the Department of the Air Force.

The Army Research Office’s Early Career Program supports outstanding scientists beginning their independent research careers and encourages fundamental research in areas relevant to the Army. The award is considered one of the Army’s most prestigious honors for early-career researchers.

Parto joined CREOL as a faculty member after completing postdoctoral research at the California Institute of Technology. He earned his doctorate in optics and photonics from UCF in 2019. His research encompasses nonlinear optics and integrated photonics for sensing, information processing and computing.