ELON COLLEGE – Elliot McGucken, an assistant professor of physics at Elon College, was awarded second place in a global competition that challenges doctoral students to create commercial applications of their dissertation research.
McGucken, who received his doctorate at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and also did research at North Carolina State University, was awarded a $20,000 grant from the Merrill Lynch Forum, sponsor of the first-of-its-kind global competition.
The competition was open to new doctorate recipients in the sciences, liberal arts and engineering disciplines.
In his entry, McGucken described how his research can be used to develop a computer-chip based device that can provide limited resolution vision for people with retinal-based blindness. Beneficiaries would be 10,000 people worldwide suffering from a form of blindness involving retinal pigmentosa and age-related macular degeneration.
The Merrill Lynch Forum is a “virtual” think tank established by the global financial services company to bring together leading experts to consider and explore issues of worldwide importance in the areas of technology, economics and international relations.
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