The SPIE George W. Goddard Award in Space and Airborne Optics is presented in recognition of exceptional achievement in optical or photonic technology or instrumentation for earth or planetary or astronomical science, reconnaissance or surveillance from airborne or space platforms. The award is for the invention and development of a new process or technique, technology, instrumentation, or system. Honorarium $2,000.
George William Goddard (June 15, 1889 - September 20, 1987) was a United States Air Force brigadier general and a pioneer in aerial photography. During World War II, Goddard promoted aerial reconnaissance, aided the Navy in use of the strip camera and color photography, and introduced the moving film magazine. He was awarded the honorary degree of master of photography by the Photographers Association of America, and also received the Progress Medal for 1951 at the annual convention of the Photographic Society of America.
Previous Recipients of the SPIE George W. Goddard Award in Space and Airborne Optics
2020 - Oswald Siegmund
2019 - Giovanni Fazio
2018 - Sarath Deshapriya Gunapala
2017 - New Horizons Optical Instrumentation Team
2016 - Supriya Chakrabarti
2015 - Grady H. Tuell
2014 - James J. Bock
2013 - Samuel Harvey Moseley
2012 - William J. Borucki
2011 - James H. Churnside
2010 - Moustafa T. Chahine
2009 - Neil Gehrels
2008 - R. John Gille
2007 - Alan Title
2006 - Martin C. Weisskopf
2005 - John C. Mather
2003 - James B. Breckinridge
2001 - Rudolf A. Hanel
2000 - John A. Hackwell
1999 - Paul R. Yoder, Jr.
1998 - Robert Q. Fugate
1997 - Jacques E. Blamont
1996 - Marija S. Scholl
1994 - Richard B. Hall
1993 - Jerry E. Nelson
1992 - James D. Trolinger
1991 - Leo Beiser
1990 - James B. Odom
1989 - John W. Hardy
1987 - Morris Birnbaum
1986 - Louis J. Cutrona
1985 - Leon P. Van Speybroeck
1984 - Aden Baker Meinel
1983 - Milton Chang and John Matthews
1982 - Joseph B. Houston, Jr.
1981 - Robert R. Shannon
1980 - F. Dow Smith
1979 - Carl E. Duckett
1978 - General Lew Allen, Jr.
1977 - Roderic M. Scott
1976 - Walter J. Levison
1975 - Earle B. Brown
1974 - Lewis Larmore
1971 - Leon Kosofsky
1970 - Donald B. Milliken
1969 - Harry Davis
1968 - Richard W. Philbrick
1967 - Bruce Murray
1966 - Merton E. Davies
1965 - E. L. Taylor
1964 - Edwin M. Martz, Jr.
1963 - Amrom H. Katz
1962 - Eugene W. Elliott
1961 - General George W. Goddard
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2019 - Giovanni Fazio
The SPIE Awards Committee has made this recommendation in recognition of his exceptional achievements in the area of infrared instruments spanning 40 years including the Infrared Array Camera (IRAC) aboard the Spitzer Space Telescope, which has made extraordinary discoveries from measuring the mass of the most distant galaxy (GN-z11) to finding and characterizing seven Earth-sized planets in the TRAPPIST-1 system.
2018 - Sarath Deshapriya Gunapala
The SPIE Awards Committee has made this recommendation in recognition of his exceptional achievements in the development of quantum structures based infrared detector and focal plane array technologies for aerospace applications.
2017 - New Horizons Optical Instrumentation Team - led by Southwest Research Institute, including team members from the Alice, Ralph, and LORRI instruments
The SPIE Awards Committee has made this recommendation in recognition of the team's efforts in developing the innovative instruments that returned first-ever images and data of Pluto and its moons, helping to better understand distant worlds.
2016 - Supriya Chakrabarti
The SPIE Awards Committee has made this recommendation in recognition of his efforts as an innovative scientist, a visionary physicist, a scholar of extraordinary insight, and as an extraordinary role model.
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2015 - Grady H. Tuell
The SPIE Awards Committee has made this recommendation in recognition of his foundational research and development in bathymetric lidar and data fusion; his efforts to further advance airborne lidar remote sensing in other ways including real-time calculation of total propagated positioning error.
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2014 - James J. Bock
The SPIE Awards Committee has made this recommendation in recognition of his development of sensitive bolometer arrays for studies of distant, dusty galaxies and the cosmic microwave background radiation, leading to their use on the Spectral and Photometric Imaging Receiver (SPIRE) on the Herschel Space Telescope and the High Frequency Instrument (HFI) on the Planck Surveyor spacecraft.
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2013 - Samuel Harvey Moseley,
The SPIE Awards Committee has made this recommendation in recognition of his extraordinary inventions of superconducting imaging arrays for astronomy, ranging from submillimeter bolometers to energysensitive X-ray microcalorimeters, and even dark matter detectors, as well as microshutter arrays for the James Webb Space Telescope near IR spectrometer.
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2012 - Mr. William Borucki
The SPIE Awards Committee has made this recommendation in honor of 25 years of design and development of high-precision transit photometry techniques that enabled NASA's Kepler mission to revolutionize our knowledge about the frequency and distribution of extrasolar terrestrial planets.
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2011 - Dr. James H. Churnside
The SPIE Awards Committee has made this recommendation in recognition of his creativity and leadership in developing and advancing the airborne fish lidar technique, and for wide-ranging contributions to optical propagation in the atmosphere and ocean.
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2010 - Dr. Moustafa T. Chahine
The SPIE Awards Committee has made this recommendation in recognition of his exceptional achievement in optical science and instrumentation for aerospace and atmospheric research.
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2009 - Dr. Neil Gehrels
The SPIE Awards Committee has made this recommendation in recognition of his pioneering contributions in opening the gamma-ray spectral window as its own astronomical discipline through his leadership of the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory and the Swift Mission.
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2008 - Dr. R. John Gille
The SPIE Awards Committee has made this recommendation in recognition of his outstanding research and significant accomplishments in building instruments and interpretation of results in the monitoring of the atmosphere, in particular on the High Resolution Dynamics Limb Sounder (HIRDLS).
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2007 Professor Alan Title
The SPIE Awards Committee has made this recommendation for his contributions and leadership as the principle investigator for NASA's TRACE mission and his design and operations of space optics instruments throughout your career, which has had a major impact on probing the hydrodynamics of the Sun's solar interior and mapping the Sun's surface magnetic field.
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