2014 SPIE President's Award

SPIE member John Dudley, the visionary who drove the UN’s designation of 2015 as the International Year of Light and Light-based Technologies (IYL2015), has received the 2014 SPIE President’s Award.

Dudley chaired the IYL2015 Steering Committee that brought the proposal to the United Nations General Assembly. The initiative aims to promote improved public and political understanding of the central role of light in the modern world.

Bringing the proposal to the UN “was a wonderful opportunity to explain the importance of light science and technology to a new community of international diplomats,” Dudley said. “It was immensely satisfying to see how open-minded and interested they were in learning about the optical technologies that underpin modern society and which promise so much in areas of global development and improved quality of life.”

Dudley is the president of the European Physical Society and a professor at Université de Franche-Comté (France) where he heads the optoelectronics and photonics research section of the CNRS research institute FEMTO-ST.

In accepting the award, Dudley thanked the SPIE Board of Directors and SPIE President H. Philip Stahl, a member of the team who visited the UN to advocate for the proposal, for their essential roles in the proposal’s success.

“Quite simply, we would not have the opportunity to celebrate an International Year of Light without your support,” he said.

SPIE is a founding sponsor of IYL2015, which will have its kickoff celebration in Paris in January. SPIE Professional is a media partner for IYL2015.

The SPIE President’s Award recognizes unique and meritorious service of outstanding benefit to the Society and to the optics community. The UN’s declaration of the IYL was potentially the single-most important event of the past year for the optics and photonics community.

For more information on IYL2015, including ways you can get involved, visit spie.org/IYL.

• Have a question or comment about this article? Write to us at spieprofessional@spie.org.
• To receive a print copy of SPIE Professional, the SPIE member magazine, become an SPIE member.