SPIE Fellows Lihong Wang and Martin Richardson recently received honorary doctorate degrees from Lund University in Sweden and the University of Bordeaux in France, respectively.
The University of Bordeaux awarded Martin Richardson, a professor of optics and founding director of the Townes Laser Institute at CREOL, the College of Optics & Photonics at University of Central Florida (USA), with an honorary degree in recognition of his distinguished career in lasers and photonics and his close collaboration with the university.
Lund University awarded Lihong Wang, a professor in biomedical engineering at Washington University in St. Louis (USA), with an honorary doctorate for his prominent role in developing photoacoustic-imaging technology in biomedicine. Wang is a regular guest lecturer at Lund University, where the interdisciplinary study group Multiple Imaging Modalities for Improved Care (MIMIC) was created based on his technology.
Wang's role in cancer imaging
"(Wang's) groundbreaking and internationally recognized research has played a major role for many of those in physics, medicine and engineering who work in this field," says Stefan Andersson-Engels, professor of atomic physics at Lund University.
A leading biophotonics researcher on new methods of cancer imaging, including photoacoustic tomography, Wang has received more than 30 research grants as the principal investigator with a cumulative budget of more than $40 million. His research on non-ionizing biophotonic imaging has been supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), National Science Foundation (NSF), the U.S. Department of Defense, the Whitaker Foundation and the National Institute of Standards and Technology.
A book he co-wrote with Hsin-I Wu, "Biomedical Optics: Principles and Imaging," was one of the first textbooks in the field and won the 2010 Joseph W. Goodman Book Writing Award.
Wang has been editor-in-chief of the bimonthly SPIE Journal of Biomedical Optics (JBO) since 2010 and is to give a "Hot Topics" presentation at BiOS, part of SPIE Photonics West on 1 February. Wang will discuss ultrasonically beating optical diffusion and diffraction in photoacoustic tomography.
Richardson a laser educator
In 2013, SPIE awarded Richardson with the Harold E. Edgerton Award in recognition of his significant contributions to the field of high-speed diagnostics of transient dense-plasmas.
Richardson helped establish the Laser Plasma Laboratory at UCF in 1990, developing research programs in ultrafast laser development, laser-plasma studies, EUV/X-ray lithography and microscopy, laser materials processing, femtosecond laser structuring of materials, laser spectroscopy and sensing, and high-intensity laser filamentation studies in the atmosphere.
Richardson directs an NSF-sponsored International Research Experiences for Undergraduates Program at UCF. He is particularly interested in advancing science in under-developed countries and in gaining equal rights for women through science.
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