Keller heads SPIE's 2020 Society Awards

18 Nov 2019

Society honors 23 distinguished award recipients from wide field of light-based science and technology.

SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics, and publisher of optics.org, has announced the recipients of its prestigious annual awards.

Honoring transformative advancements in multiple areas, including medicine, astronomy, lithography, optical metrology, and community-focused achievements, the Society's awards recognize technical accomplishments as well as committed service to SPIE and the support of its organizational mission.

SPIE Gold Medal: Ursula Keller For career-long pioneering contributions in ultrafast science and technology, including the development of practical ultrashort pulse lasers; the study of fundamental mechanisms and limits to mode-locking and optical pulse formation; the invention of techniques for frequency comb generation and stabilization; and groundbreaking studies of the physics of light matter interactions on attosecond timescales.

SPIE Fellow Ursula Keller joined ETH Zurich as a tenured professor in physics in 1993 and currently serves as director of a large Swiss national research program (i.e. NCCR MUST). She received her PhD in applied physics from Stanford University in 1989 and a Physics "Diplom" from ETH in 1984.

President's Award: Daniel Vukobratovich For his outstanding and long-term commitment to SPIE and its educational programs by sharing his expertise in optomechanical design through more than 100 SPIE Short Courses and other activities.

Directors' Award: Gary Spiegel For his long service to SPIE and the global optics community as a business leader, for his significant leadership as SPIE Treasurer during challenging global economic conditions, and for his service to the future of SPIE as a member of the SPIE CEO Search Committee.

Britton Chance Award in Biomedical Optics: Steven L. Jacques In recognition of pioneering work in the field of biomedical optics.

Biophotonics Technology Innovator Award: Nirmala Ramanujam In recognition of her development of disruptive low-cost, high-performance technologies to enable see-and-treat paradigms for cervical cancer prevention.

A.E. Conrady Award in Optical Engineering: Pablo Benítez In recognition of pioneering discoveries in both nonimaging and imaging optics, including the simultaneous multiple surface (SMS) method of optical design for freeform surfaces.

Harrison H. Barrett Award in Medical Imaging: Harold L. Kundel In recognition of his many contributions to the field of medical image perception. His research has shed light into the nature of misses in radiology, as well as in the acquisition of expertise in this domain.

Harold E. Edgerton Award in High-Speed Optics: Alan R. Fry In recognition of his many contributions to the laser industry as well as industrial and scientific applications of ultra-fast laser technology.

Dennis Gabor Award in Diffractive Optics: Pietro Ferraro In recognition of significant contributions to the development of digital holography.

George W. Goddard Award in Space and Airborne Optics: Oswald Siegmund In recognition of his efforts to advance the development of photodetectors, microchannel plates and anode readout techniques.

Mozi Award: Yuri Kivshar In recognition of pioneering research in nonlinear metamaterials and meta-optics, and the demonstration of efficient metadevices and meta-lenses based on all-dielectric Mie-resonant nanophotonics.

G. G. Stokes Award in Optical Polarization: Tatiana Novikova In recognition of her research in Mueller polarimetry for the development of techniques used in predicting and measuring the transfer of polarized light through a turbid media, in particular polarized light propagation via atmospheric transmission and biological tissue.

Chandra S. Vikram Award in Optical Metrology: James E. Millerd In recognition of the invention and commercialization of technology for reducing the effects of vibration and turbulence in interferometric optical metrology.

Frits Zernike Award in Microlithography: Winfried Kaiser In recognition of exemplary contributions to advancing the state-of-the-art lithographic optical systems, including EUV, that have enabled the continuation of Moore's law.

Diversity Outreach Award: Jessica Wade In recognition of her extensive public engagement surrounding the issues of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM), and for championing gender equity and diversity in these fields.

Maria Goeppert-Mayer Award in Photonics: John H. Lehman In recognition of the development of innovative tools for laser power and energy measurements spanning ultraviolet to THz wavelengths, and from sub-microWatt to multi-kiloWatt power levels.

Rudolf Kingslake Medal and Prize: John R. Rogers In recognition of a lifetime dedication to optical design, for outstanding service to the academic optics community, to the optics industry, and to the professional optics societies.

Early Career Achievement Award — Academic Focus: Vivian Ferry: In recognition of her contributions to the understanding of light-matter interactions in solar energy conversion, and the development of optical materials for plasmonics, metamaterials, and nanocrystals; and Gordon Wetzstein: In recognition of his outstanding contributions to computational imaging and display technologies.

Early Career Achievement Award — Industry/Government Focus: Sona Hosseini and Nishant Mohan Hosseini: In recognition of her innovative optical design work on ultra-miniature heterodyne spectrometers; Mohan: In recognition of his innovative work in improving vision and eye health by development of novel contact lenses and OCT instrumentation, impacting the health of millions of people around the world.

Maria J. Yzuel Educator Award: Kathleen Richardson In recognition of her sustained contributions to global research, education and training in optical materials.

Aden and Marjorie Meinel Technology Achievement Award: Sanjay Krishna In recognition of the first demonstration of single color and dual color nBn superlattice detectors and focal plane arrays.