Award Winners

Current Award Winners

Each year SPIE recognizes outstanding achievements through its awards program. The Awards Committee is pleased to announce the 2010 SPIE Award recipients.

Charles H. Townes, University of California, Berkeley, California, USA, is 2010 recipient of the Gold Medal of the Society in recognition of his extraordinary foresight in recognizing the potential of the laser and coherent light 50 years ago, for his pursuit of the requisite scientific inquiry to turn lasers into one of the most potentially disruptive technologies of the 21st century and finally for his pioneering scientific contributions to the fields of optics, lasers, astronomy and molecular spectroscopy.

Juan Carlos Miñano, Universidad Politeconica de Madrid, Madrid, Spain, is the 2010 recipient of the A.E. Conrady Award in recognition his exceptional contributions in developing new design methods and devices in Nonimaging Optics.

J. Gary Eden, University of Illinois, Urbana, Illinois, USA, is the 2010 recipient of the Harold E. Edgerton Award in recognition of his major contributions in demonstrating optical techniques for observing physical phenomena, including his seminal work in atomic, molecular and ultra fast spectroscopy.

Mitsuo Takeda, University of Electro-Communications, Tokyo, Japan, is the 2010 winner of the Dennis Gabor award in recognition of his eminent contributions to the development of holography and optical metrology through the inventions of the Fourier transform method for fringe analysis and coherence holography.

Moustafa T. Chahine, Jet Propulson Laboratory, Pasadena, California, USA, is the 2010 winner of the George W. Goddard award in recognition of his exceptional achievement in optical science and instrumentation for aerospace and atmospheric research.

The 2008 Rudolf Kingslake Medal and Prize is awarded to E.W.C. van Groesen, Milan Maksimovic and Manfred Hammer for their paper titled "Coupled optical defect microcavities in one-dimensional photonic bandgap structures and quasi-normal modes" published in the November 2008 issue of Optical Engineering. This paper, selected by the Kingslake Awards Committee, is recognized for its presentation of a straightforward and reasonable approach for analyzing multi-cavity structures and reveals that micro-cavities are defect structures that support higher valued transmission modes. This novel research models and supports both symmetrical and non-symmetrical micro-cavities. Photonic crystals have revolutionized the study of the optical physics of materials.

Emil Wolf, University of Rochester, Rochester, New York, USA, is the 2010 recipient of the G.G. Stokes Award in recognition of his contributions in formulating the modern theories of coherence and polarization of optical fields.

James C. Wyant, College of Optical Sciences, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona, USA, is the 2010 recipient of the Chandra S. Vikram award in recognition of his lifetime of achievements in optical metrology, in particular his pioneering contributions to the field of quantitative interferometric optical testing, and for nurturing the invention of phase-measuring interferometer systems.

Marc D. Levenson, BetaSights, Saratoga, Califoria, USA, is the 2010 recipient of the Frits Zernike Award for Microlithography in recognition of one of the most important developments in lithography resolution enhancement of the last twenty years, the phase shifting mask.

Alberto Salleo, Stanford University, Stanford, California, USA, is the 2010 recipient of the Early Career Achievement award in recognition of his fundamental and highly influential contributions in large area electronics, polymer thin film transistors, and laser/material interactions.

Nicholas M. Massa, Springfield Technical Community College , Springfield, Massachusetts, USA, is the 2010 Educator Award winner in recognition of his multiple contributions to optics/photonics education over the past 23 years including: educating, mentoring and preparing hundreds of college students for the workforce; teaching in-service teachers and technicians in industry; serving on SPIE Education and ETOP long-range planning committees; developing new instructional materials and co-authoring a user-friendly introductory optics textbook.

Akhlesh Lakhtakia, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania, USA, is the 2010 recipient of the Technology Achievement award in recognition of his conceptualization of sculptured thin films, wide-ranging theoretical and experimental research in optics on these materials, and for characterizing them as nanoengineered metamaterials.

The 2009 President's Award is presented to Hans Tiziani in recognition of his distinguished service to the Society; including leadership and support of, and participation in SPIE technical programs, service on the SPIE Board of Directors, and comprehensive and sustained guidance on how SPIE should best serve the community in Europe.

The 2009 Directors' Award is presented to to Bruce J. Tromberg, for his outstanding leadership as the Editor-in-Chief of the SPIE Journal of Biomedical Optics.

Lihong V. Wang and Hsin-I Wu are the 2010 recipients of the Joseph W. Goodman Book Writing Award for their work, Biomedical Optics: Principles and Imaging. The Goodman Committee cite the book as playing a very important role in the instruction and understanding of biomedical optics, and noted that Biomedical Optics: Principles and Imaging, published by John Wiley & Sons in 2007, is proving to be an invaluable resource for researchers in the field and for the next generation of scientists.

Dr. Wang and Dr. Wu will accept the award at SPIE's Optics & Photonics meeting in August 2010 which SPIE is honored to announce will be presented by Dr. Joseph Goodman.