SPIE Technology Achievement Award 2015

SPIE Fellow Keith Doyle, a leading authority in integrated optomechanical performance analysis who leads the Structural and Thermal-Fluids Engineering Group at MIT Lincoln Laboratory (USA), is the recipient of the 2015 SPIE Technology Achievement Award.

Doyle is honored for his achievements in incorporating elements of optical, thermal, and structural engineering into the analysis of optical systems used in ground, aerial and spaceborne optics for astronomical, remote sensing, laser communications, and military applications. The optical systems are also used in microlithography, telecommunications, and consumer optics.

Doyle is author or coauthor of more than 30 technical articles and is the lead author of a SPIE Tutorial Text, Integrated Optomechanical Analysis, now in its second edition. 

At Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Lincoln Labs, Doyle oversees development of advanced engineering technologies and multidisciplinary engineering solutions that enable prototype systems. These developments include optimal structures, high-efficiency thermal-fluid heat exchangers, and aerodynamic platforms created using novel materials and state-of-the-art integrated analysis and environmental test capabilities.

Along with efforts to improve software tools and analysis methods for aero-optical effects and to use smart materials for optical metering structures, Doyle is active in the training and educating of the next generation of optomechanical engineers. He is an SPIE course instructor and serves on the program committees for several SPIE conferences.

Doyle has a PhD in engineering mechanics and optical sciences from University of Arizona and has worked at the federally funded R&D center at MIT; Optical Research Associates (ORA), now a division of Synopsys; and Sigmadyne.

At Sigmadyne, he led the development team for the SigFit engineering software, which is used for modeling rigid-body and elastic optical-surface errors, line-of-sight jitter, system-wavefront error, thermo-optic effects, stress birefringence, structural dynamic responses, and mechanical optimization.

At ORA, SPIE Fellow Kevin P. Thompson said Doyle advanced the communications between a team of mechanical designers and optical designers while working on new optical system designs.

“He represents one of only a few individuals with the background in integrated modeling,” Thompson said, as well as a simultaneous “understanding of optical design and more significantly optical designers and the software environment they work in.”

SPIE presents several annual awards that recognize individual and team technical accomplishments in optics and photonics and service to the Society.

Nominations for 2016 may be submitted to SPIE through 1 July 2015 for the Britton Chance Biomedical Optics Award and the Biophotonics Technology Innovator Award and by 1 October 2015 for all other SPIE awards.

Nominations remain active for three years from the submission date, except for the SPIE Early Career Achievement Award and the Joseph W. Goodman Book Writing Award.

Nominations must be accompanied by:

• Nomination form
• Citation stating the accomplishments of nominee
• Description of the significant aspects of nominee’s career
• Candidate’s curriculum vitae listing educational background, positions held, publications, awards, honors, activities, and offices held within SPIE
• At least two letters of reference, not from the nominator

Read more about SPIE awards.

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