Preeti Jagadev: The 2024 SPIE Diversity Outreach Award
Preeti Jagadev is an assistant teaching professor at Syracuse University where she will be teaching subjects in the data science domain. Jagadev has always pursued research that simultaneously contributes to the advancement of science as well as to the betterment of human health. Most recently, she was a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Michigan (UM) where she designed artificial-intelligence algorithms to diagnose the deployment-related respiratory diseases prevalent in war veterans. Previously, Jagadev was the only female pursuing a PhD in her group in the Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering at the National Institute of Technology Goa (NITG) in India. She developed a novel, high-performance medical module for the real-time monitoring of human respiration in a completely non-contact, non-invasive, and automated manner, using infrared thermography and artificial intelligence, presenting this work at a variety of international platforms including SPIE conferences.
An SPIE Early Career Professional Member, Jagadev has already begun contributing to the SPIE community, presenting several papers at SPIE events (Future Sensing Technologies, Optics + Photonics, Defense + Commercial Sensing), and serving as the secretary and vice-president of the SPIE Student Chapter at NITG. In 2021, her profile was featured in the SPIE Women in Optics publication. Jagadev’s own experiences made her aware of the barriers faced by underrepresented groups in STEM, leading to her advocacy for diversity, equity, and inclusion in those areas. She has mentored multiple students from underprivileged areas of India, helping them in pursuing their education as well as their research. As a result, she earned acclaim from both the former and present education ministers of India as well as the chief minister of Goa for her contributions to the field of STEM. As the outreach chair of the Optics Society at UM, she worked with Ann Arbor’s Peace Neighborhood Center to provide STEM-related programs to underrepresented children, setting a remarkable example of how a student organization can contribute tangibly toward uplifting a community. In addition, she collaborated with UM’s Females Excelling More in Math and Engineering Sciences (FEMMES) to help with their STEM-focused camp for Ann Arbor schoolgirls. Jagadev also volunteered for the university’s Science Engagement and Education for Kids program, served as the DEI lead of the Radiology Department of Michigan Medicine, and was the postdoc liaison officer as well as the DEI officer of the Graduate Society of Women Engineers at UM.
“I helped organize ‘São Paulo School of Advanced Science on Modern Topics in Biophotonics,’ an event targeted at graduate students and early-career researchers, and Preeti was one of the 50 international students we selected to receive a travel grant,” notes the University of Sao Paulo’s Sao Carlos Institute of Physics’ Lilian Tan Moriyama. “Among the nearly 200 event participants, she was certainly one of the most engaged, something I’ve noted in her activities since then as well. She has a true passion for teaching and for making a difference in people’s lives and in her community, and she clearly understands the importance of diversity and gender equality in STEM education. One of the qualities that I most admire about Preeti is her sense of social responsibility: she is concerned not only about her own research accomplishments and their ultimate applications, but she is also deeply committed to spreading knowledge and empowering other young people to follow an academic career if they want so. As a woman scientist, I feel very proud of Preeti and of the path she is paving on her journey as a woman in STEM.”
Meet the other 2024 SPIE Society Award recipients.
Read more about Preeti Jagadev and the SPIE Diversity Outreach Award.
