In August, the Lighting Research Center (LRC) at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute will kick off the first conference to explore the opportunities and challenges of 3D printing for the lighting industry. The conference will set the stage for discussions about the future of 3D printing for lighting components and systems through more than 30 research and state-of-the-technology presentations, as well as discussion and networking events.

Rensselaer’s Lighting Research Center congratulates recent doctoral graduate Akila Udage, Ph.D., who has been awarded the 2023 IESNYC Thesis Award from the New York City chapter of the Illuminating Engineering Society. Dr. Udage’s doctoral thesis, titled “Design Analysis of 3D Printed Internal Cavity Lens for Lighting Applications,” demonstrated innovative research into the design and manufacturing of internal-cavity flat optics for LED lighting systems using 3D printing technology.

The Lighting Research Center (LRC) at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute has partnered with SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics, to initiate a new lighting conference dedicated to the advancement and use of 3D printing for the manufacture of lighting components and systems. The conference will be held as part of SPIE Optics + Photonics 2023, the leading multidisciplinary optical sciences and technology meeting, August 20-24, 2023, in San Diego, Calif.

The Lighting Research Center (LRC) at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) has been awarded $1.125 million from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for a three-year research effort to improve the visibility, efficiency, and reliability of air traffic and navigation in the United States.

Akila Udage, a doctoral candidate at the Lighting Research Center (LRC) in the School of Architecture at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, has been recognized by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) with an Honorable Mention in the 2022 Solid-State Lighting Workshop student poster competition for his research into the use of 3D printing to integrate electromagnetic elements into lighting systems.