Student Interns Host Tour for U.S. Rep

VALDOSTA - U.S. Representative Jack Kingston (R-Ga.) joined four Valdosta State University student interns on Tuesday, Oct. 28, at Valdosta Optics Lab, Inc. for a tour of the facility.

Senior chemistry majors, Cory Bryan, Konda Chiharu and Baqara Ngoyi, and sophomore pre-engineering major Chad Hendley are fulfilling paid internships at VOLI, which specializes in chemical vapor deposition and diamond film synthesis for optical and semi-conductor applications, both commercial and defense-related. Students are working on several projects for the company, including motion control programming, Raman mapping and surface treatment and morphology characteristics.

Kingston spoke with VOLI administrators about the lab's objectives and products, examined the cutting-edge equipment and listened as each student intern gave a description of his or her specialty.

"Valdosta Optics lab is developing some of the most sophisticated defense technology on the market today. We need this type of product to ensure that our military has missiles that are the most exact," Kingston said. "It is exciting to know that type of work is being done here in Valdosta and that VSU students have an active role not only in learning from the process, but contributing to it as well."

VOLI and Valdosta State are in the second year of a two-year contract worth $171,215, which will establish a R&D effort of mutual benefit to both organizations. The project has enabled VSU to equip and optics laboratory in its physics department (Nevins Hall), which Dr. Frank Flaherty will use to teach a new course this spring.

The contract is managed through VSU's Center for Applied Research, which connects faculty expertise with applied research needs within the university's 41-county service region. Call CAR Coordinator Dr Gary Lynn Wood at (229) 333-5230 or e-mail him at lwood@valdosta.edu for more information about VSU's contract with Valdosta Optics Lab. Visit www.valdosta.edu/cas/car for more information on the CAR.