Professor Corin Gawith – Royal Academy of Engineering Research Chair

We are delighted to announce that Covesion’s CTO, Professor Corin Gawith, has been granted a five-year extension to his Royal Academy of Engineering Research Chair at The University of Southampton. The award titled: ‘The Covesion/Royal Academy of Engineering Research Chair in Nonlinear Optical Materials by Ultra-Precision Machining,’ will continue with Covesion as the industry sponsor.

The Royal Academy of Engineering Research Chairs and Senior Research Fellowships programme was started in 1986 to strengthen links between industry and academia. It supports exceptional academics in UK universities undertaking ‘use-inspired’ research that meets the needs of their industrial sponsors. Awardees are expected to establish or enhance a world-leading engineering research group, deliver ‘user inspired’ research that meets the needs of their industrial sponsors and become a self-sustaining research group by the end of the award (through securing substantial grant income), as well as disseminate the outcomes of their research for appropriate academic use.

Corin, who is also a Fellow of the Institute of Physics, has spent 25 years pioneering research and manufacture of PPLN crystals and photonics components, leading to numerous grant awards, patents, and scientific publications in this field.

Commenting on the role, Professor Gawith said: “This is a great privilege and I am delighted that the success of our work with Covesion has been recognised in this way. I am extremely grateful for the support that the Royal Academy of Engineering and University of Southampton have given both myself and my colleagues at Covesion and feel very fortunate to continue working at the interface of academia and industry.”

Covesion’s CEO Mike Day added: “Corin has been one of the driving forces behind Covesion’s success from day one. His knowledge and expertise are combined with the rare talent of being able to communicate effectively what PPLN is, how it works and, importantly from a commercial perspective, how it can be of benefit to organisations and institutions requiring frequency conversion.  Corin has achieved the highest level of academic success but has a unique ability to understand the demands of the commercial environment.  I know all of his colleagues at Covesion join me in congratulating him on this achievement.”

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