Andresen, McManamon, Willner named winners of SPIE Directors' and President's awards

Gold Medal for Federico Capasso, other awards presented at annual banquet

06 September 2013

BELLINGHAM, Washington, USA -- Awards recognizing important contributions to SPIE and the optics and photonics community were announced at the Society's recent annual awards banquet during SPIE Optics and Photonics. The awards honoring important research and science education accomplishments were presented by SPIE President William Arnold.

Bjørn F. Andresen
Bjørn Andresen

The SPIE Directors' Award is presented in recognition of significant services of outstanding benefit to the Society.  Bjørn Andresen (Acktar Ltd.) was awarded the SPIE Directors' Award in appreciation of his decades of sustained and outstanding service to SPIE, particularly in organizing and developing SPIE's Infrared Technology and Applications Conference. His extraordinary level of dedication and commitment for over 39 years has brought great credit upon himself, his colleagues, and the mission of SPIE.

Paul McManamon
Paul McManamon
Alan Willner
Alan Willner

The SPIE President's Award recognizes unique and meritorious service of outstanding benefit to the Society and to the optics community. Paul McManamon (Exciting Technology, LLC) and Alan Willner (Univ of Southern California) were jointly awarded the SPIE President's Award in recognition of their significant service to SPIE and the greater optics and photonics community, by co-chairing the National Research Council's report "Optics and Photonics, Essential Technologies for Our Nation."

Other awards presented at the banquet were:

  • A. E. Conrady Award to Kevin Thompson (Synopsys Inc.)
  • George W. Goddard Award to Samuel Harvey Moseley (NASA Goddard Flight Center)
  • G. G. Stokes Award to José Jorge Gil (University of Zaragoza)
  • Chandra S. Vikram Award in Optical Metrology to Małgorzata Kujawińska (Warsaw University of Technology)
  • SPIE Technology Achievement Award to Alan Bovik (University of Texas at Austin)
  • SPIE Educator Award to Barry Shoop (U.S. Military Academy, West Point)
  • SPIE Early Career Achievement Award to Timothy White (U.S. Air Force Research Lab).

Federico Capasso (School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University) was awarded the Gold Medal of the Society, the highest honor the Society bestows, in recognition of his seminal and wide-ranging contributions to photonics; in particular bandgap engineering of optoelectronic materials and devices, quantum cascade lasers and plasmonics based photonic devices.

SPIE presents several yearly awards that recognize outstanding individual and team technical accomplishments and meritorious service to the Society. SPIE urges you to nominate a colleague for his or her outstanding achievements. Nominations may be made through October 1 of any given year and are considered active for three years from the submission date. Visit SPIE.org/x1164.xml for instructions and nomination forms.

View SPIE 2013 award winners

SPIE is the international society for optics and photonics, a not-for-profit organization founded in 1955 to advance light-based technologies. The Society serves more than 235,000 constituents from approximately 155 countries, offering conferences, continuing education, books, journals, and a digital library in support of interdisciplinary information exchange, professional networking, and patent precedent. SPIE provided over $3.2 million in support of education and outreach programs in 2012.

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Stacey Crockett
Media Relations Coordinator
StaceyC@spie.org
Tel: +1 360 685 5458