Ten SPIE Members are among the 170 inventors and innovators awarded Fellow status with the U.S. National Academy of Inventors (NAI). The new Fellows were nominated by their peers for outstanding contributions to innovation in areas such as patents, licensing, innovative discovery, and technology.
Election to NAI Fellow status is a high professional distinction accorded to academic inventors who have demonstrated a highly prolific spirit of innovation in creating or facilitating outstanding inventions that have made a tangible impact on quality of life, economic development, and the welfare of society.
The 170 Fellows will be awarded a trophy, medal, and rosette pin in honor of their commitment to excellence in academic invention on 20 March, 2015 at 4th Annual Conference of the NAI in Pasadena, California.
Six of the fellowship recipients are SPIE Fellows and four are regular Members with SPIE.
- SPIE Fellow Jan Allebach, Purdue University
- SPIE Fellow Alexander Cartwright, State University of New York
- SPIE Fellow James J. Coleman, University of Texas at Dallas
- SPIE Fellow J. Gary Eden, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
- Saif Islam, University of California, Davis
- Sergey B. Mirov, University of Alabama at Birmingham
- Josè Moura, Carnegie Mellon University
- Rebecca Richards-Kortum, Rice University
- SPIE Fellow Thomas Thundat, University of Alberta
- SPIE Fellow Alan Willner, University of Southern California
Willner, Eden, Mirov, and Cartwright are co-authors of papers to be presented at SPIE Photonics West in February 2015
Also inducted this year are 2014 Nobel Laureate in Physics Shuji Nakamura and 1997 Nobel Physics Laureate and former U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu. Nakamura will be the featured speaker at the SPIE Fellows luncheon at Photonics West in February.
Founded in 2010, the NAI has 414 Fellows representing more than 150 research universities, and governmental, and non-profit research institutions. Collectively the 414 NAI Fellow hold 14,000 U.S. patents.
