SPIE Announces 2016 Award Recipients For Achievements In Optics And Photonics

Gold Medal of the Society goes to the State University of New York professor Paras Prasad

The Awards Committee of SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics, has announced the 2016 recipients in its prestigious annual awards program. Technical accomplishments are recognized by these awards, along with meritorious service to the Society.

Award winners for 2016 are:

Gold Medal of the Society: Paras Prasad, State University of New York, for numerous world-renowned, pioneering contributions to nonlinear optics, nanophotonics, and biophotonics, as well as over three decades of outstanding service to SPIE.

Britton Chance Biomedical Optics Award: David Boas, Harvard University, for development, application, and dissemination of near-infrared spectroscopy and imaging for imaging breast cancer and the functioning brain, and for his perseverance in developing several innovative microscopic methods to further advance our knowledge of cerebral physiology. Boas received his award at SPIE Photonics West in February.

A.E. Conrady Award: Lacy Cook, Raytheon Missile Systems, for advancing the realm of reflective design forms over the course of more than 30 years of experience in the design of optical systems.

Dennis Gabor Award: Ting-Chung Poon, Virginia Polytechnic Institute, for pioneering contributions to optical scanning holography (OSH), which has contributed significantly to the development of novel digital holography and 3D imaging.

George W. Goddard Award: Supriya Chakrabarti, University of Massachusetts, for work as an innovative scientist, a visionary physicist, a scholar of extraordinary insight, and an extraordinary role model.

G.G. Stokes Award: Shui-Chih Alan Lien, ShenZhen Star Optoelectronic Technology Co. Ltd.,for contributions to develop extended Jones matrix formulation which has been widely used to calculate the polarization change through each layer and electro-optic effects of a liquid crystal display device.

Chandra S. Vikram Award in Optical Metrology: James Trolinger, MetroLaser Inc., for pioneering development and fielding of laser-based, state-of-the-art optical diagnostic methods.

Frits Zernike Award in Microlithography: Yan Borodovsky, for the advancement of multi-generational lithography process solutions and as a key contributor of patterning approaches and layout design rules at Intel. Borodovsky received his award at SPIE Advanced Lithography in April.

SPIE Early Career Achievement Award – Academic: Jie Yao, University of California, for the investigation of light matter interaction at deep subwavelength scale and development of optical materials for nanophotonic applications.

SPIE Early Career Achievement Award—Industry: Homan Yuen, NewGen Venture Partners, for the advancement of the dilute nitride semiconductor materials system and commercialization of world-record multi-junction solar cells.

SPIE Educator Award: Cheng Chung Lee, National Central University, for contributions to the growth of the Institute of Optical Sciences and the Department of Optics and Photonics at the National Central University in Taiwan, promoting advances in the science and engineering of optical thin films and coatings through mentoring students and industry personnel, and inspiring high school students to study optics and photonics.

SPIE Technology Achievement Award: Kent Choquette, University of Illinois, for development of high-performance vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers, particularly the invention of the practical oxide-confined VCSEL which has been widely deployed in data communication optical links within the internet, data centers, and supercomputer applications.

For future awards, members of the photonics community may nominate colleagues to recognize their outstanding achievements. Nominations may be made through 1 October of any given year and are considered active for three years from the submission date. Instructions and nomination forms are at www.spie.org/x1164.xml.

About SPIE
SPIE is the international society for optics and photonics, an educational not-for-profit organization founded in 1955 to advance light-based science, engineering, and technology. The Society serves nearly 264,000 constituents from approximately 166 countries, offering conferences and their published proceedings, continuing education, books, journals, and the SPIE Digital Library. In 2015, SPIE provided more than $5.2M in support of education and outreach programs. For more information, visit www.spie.org.