On March 27, OPTICA (formerly the Optical Society of America, OSA) announced the recipients of the 2024 Corning Women Scholar Award in Optical Communications. Xiaomin Liu, a Ph.D. student in the Department of Electronic Engineering at the Department of Electronic Information and Electrical Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, was successfully selected for this award due to her active contributions and academic achievements in the field of optical communications. This year, a total of three female Ph.D. students worldwide received the scholarship. Xiaomin Liu is the first student from mainland China to receive this award since its inception and is the only recipient from an Asia-Pacific university this year. Her advisor is Associate Professor Qunbi Zhuge.

Xiaomin Liu graduated in 2020 with a bachelor's degree in Information Engineering from the Department of Electronic Engineering at the Department of Electronic Information and Electrical Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University. She is currently a Ph.D. student (selected through the Chuying Program). Her primary research focuses on digital twins and intelligent management and control of optical networks, under the supervision of Associate Professor Qunbi Zhuge.

To date, she has published six first-author papers in journals such as Advanced Photonics, Journal of Lightwave Technology, and Journal of Optical Communication and Networking, and five first-author papers at conferences such as OFC and ECOC. She has received several honors, including the SPIE Optics and Photonics Education Scholarship, the National Scholarship for Ph.D., the Intel Scholarship, the Outstanding Bachelor's Thesis of Shanghai Jiao Tong University (the only recipient in the Information Engineering program in 2020), the Best Student Paper Award at the ACP International Conference in 2021, and has been invited to give 30-minute presentations at international conferences such as APC NETWORKS and IEEE OGC.

Qunbi Zhuge is a tenured Associate Professor in the Department of Electronic Engineering at the School of Electronic Information and Electrical Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, and a Ph.D. advisor. He is a recipient of the national-level high-level young talent program. His main research interests include coherent optical communications, intelligent optical networks, optical interconnects for data centers, and optical-wireless integration. He has published over 240 papers in well-known international journals and conferences.

Professor Zhuge has led and participated in numerous key R&D projects from the Ministry of Science and Technology and the National Natural Science Foundation of China. He has served as the Chair of OFC S4 in 2019, Chair of the Optica Optical Communications Group, Editorial Board Member of Optics Express, Editorial Board Member of Electronics Letters, and Editorial Board Member of Springer Nature Optical and Quantum Electronics. He has given over 30 invited talks at international conferences such as OFC and ECOC. In 2020, he was selected as one of MIT Technology Review's "35 Innovators Under 35" in China. Under his guidance, students have received various accolades, including the OFC Corning Outstanding Student Paper Award, OPTICA Corning Women Scholar Award, SPIE Education Scholarship, ACP Best Student Paper Award, and APC Best Student Paper Award.

The OPTICA Corning Women in Optical Communications Scholarship aims to recognize outstanding female Ph.D. students in the field of optical communications worldwide, providing a scholarship of $3,000. Additionally, the award will be presented at the Optical Fiber Communication Conference (OFC), a leading conference in optical communications, and each recipient will receive a $2,000 travel grant to attend the conference.