A.E. Conrady Award 2015

SPIE member Richard Juergens, a senior engineering fellow at Raytheon Missile Systems (USA) and a leading authority in optical system design and optical component fabrication and testing, is the 2015 recipient of the A.E. Conrady Award. The award recognizes him for developing optimization techniques and tolerancing methods for optical designs and for training and mentoring optical engineers.

The A.E. Conrady Award is given annually in recognition of exceptional contributions in design, construction, and testing of optical and illumination systems and instrumentation. The award recognizes developments of new equipment, techniques, and applications for designing, testing, analyzing, and/or evaluating optical and illumination systems, components, and theories.

During his 45-year career, which includes working at six companies, Juergens developed optical engineering algorithms and methodologies for the design and engineering of optical systems. These were used to design and build visible and infrared optical systems, including all-refractive, all-reflective, catadioptric, multi-FOV, and zoom systems.

During this process, he codified his algorithms and methodologies into a suite of optical software tools, mainly in the form of software macros to be run from within the CODE V optical design program. These macros make the performance metrics more flexible and useable for lens design.

Juergens is also well-known for sharing his knowledge. A significant part of his career has been spent mentoring and developing junior optical designers and engineers. He has traveled to companies throughout the US, Europe, Japan, Korea, and India giving training and technical support as well as teaching seminars on optical design techniques.

“Rick has given innumerable lectures on optical design, optical design software, and other topics in optical engineering, and his material has been incorporated into the instruction of several of our classes,” says SPIE Fellow John Greivenkamp of University of Arizona (USA).

“We are only one of the many groups that Rick has supported. He has impacted the careers of hundreds and hundreds of optical engineers,” Greivenkamp adds.

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.

SPIE award 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.

Nomination forms must be accompanied by:

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

Learn more about SPIE awards.

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