Qaisar Abbas Naqvi: The 2022 SPIE Diversity Outreach Award
In 1998, Qaisar Abbas Naqvi gained his PhD in electronics from Quaid-i-Azam University (QAU), in Pakistan, where he is now a tenured professor in the department of electronics. Naqvi is regarded as an outstanding researcher, highly effective teacher, and an exemplary mentor whose research interests include isotropic chiral media; Kobayashi potential technique in electromagnetics; scattering and propagation of electromagnetic waves; fractional electromagnetics; high frequency techniques in electromagnetics; and metamaterials. But he is also known for his dedication and commitment to encouraging, supporting, and helping to develop the careers of female, underprivileged, and other marginalized students: while cultivating leadership and research direction among his students, he also advocates on their behalf with university policymakers, committee members, parents, and guardians.
During a postdoctoral fellowship at Japan's Toho University, Naqvi recognized that networking would be critical to enabling young scientists to pursue their professional lives. He established strong ties between Toho and QAU, later hosting researchers from Japan to provide his first cohort of PhD students with exposure to world-class research. In 2011, he visited Pennsylvania State University's College of Engineering to pursue joint research activities and lay the foundation for an ongoing collaboration between Penn State and QAU. This cross-collaboration resulted in life-changing opportunities: in almost all of the top-ranked universities in Pakistan, electromagnetics and optics are being taught by Naqvi's students or those who conducted their research under PENN-QAU supervision. As chairman of QAU's department of electronics from 2010 to 2013, Naqvi established the university's SPIE Student Chapter and took on the role of advisor. He is an advocate of women in optics and other sciences, supports initiatives such as the International Day of Light, and spearheads outreach activities in universities and schools in less developed areas of Pakistan.
"I have known Dr. Naqvi for the last 17 years as a torchbearer of unequivocal support of all students," says Muhammad Faryad, an associate professor in the department of physics at the Lahore University of Management Sciences' Syed Babar Ali School of Science and Engineering. "His contributions to education and research in optics, with special support for women students, has played a pivotal role in spreading science expertise to other universities in Pakistan. He started his dedicated and persistent work in optics when his institution, Quaid-i-Azam University, was one of few local places to study that field; students trained by him are now leading optics research groups in multiple regional universities. His outreach efforts have also blossomed, particularly through his encouragement of further SPIE Student Chapters. These chapters are actively engaging with students and the public, recently arranging a joint, all-Pakistan event of a student-led conference; most of the activities arranged by the students at Quaid-i-Azam University were actually led by female students, a rarity in Pakistan. It is safe to say that most of the optics education and research across several universities in Pakistan that started in the last decade owes a great part to the efforts of Dr. Qaisar Naqvi."
Meet the other 2022 SPIE Society Award winners.
Read more about Qaisar Abbas Naqvi and the SPIE Diversity Outreach Award.
