Qianhuan Yu, a Ph.D. student in the University of Virginia's Charles L. Brown Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, earned a best student paper award at the 2019 OSA Integrated Photonics Research Silicon and Nanophotonics meeting. Photonics is the use of light for communications and geospatial applications traditionally addressed through electronics, including telecommunications, data communications, laser-based radar, precise positioning and sensing.