Twenty attain 2006 top honors from the OSA

August 30, 2006, Washington, DC--The Optical Society of America (OSA) has announced this year's recipients of twenty of its most prestigious awards. OSA bestows many of these awards during a formal presentation ceremony that will take place at the plenary session of the Society's annual meeting, Frontiers in Optics, on the morning of Monday, Oct. 9 in Rochester, N.Y.

"OSA's awards recognize exceptional achievements in optics and photonics. Each of the award recipients has demonstrated a deep commitment and vision to his or her area of expertise," said Elizabeth Rogan, OSA's executive director. "The work done by each award winner has had a profound impact on optics and will continue to do so in the future. OSA is honored to acknowledge the successes that have meant so much to the field."

The awards to be presented are as follows:

Frederic Ives Medal/Jarus W. Quinn Endowment
Recipient: Erich P. Ippen
The highest award conferred by the Society for overall distinction in optics, this award is presented to Erich P. Ippen for laying the foundations of ultrafast science and engineering and providing vision and sustained leadership to the optics community. He is currently a professor of electrical engineering and physics at MIT. As the Ives Medal winner, Ippen has been invited to present a plenary address at Frontiers in Optics, OSA's 90th annual meeting.

Esther Hoffman Beller Award
Recipient: Sang Soo Lee
Sang Soo Lee has been awarded the Esther Hoffman Beller Award, recognizing outstanding contributions to optical science and engineering education, for laying the foundation for optical science and engineering in Korea through 40-plus years of teaching and research. Lee is a professor emeritus at Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) and served as the president of KAIST.

Max Born Award
Recipient: Richart E. Slusher
This year's recipient of the Max Born Award, presented in recognition of contributions to physical optics, is Richart E. Slusher for outstanding experimental contributions to quantum optics in squeezed state generation, in microcavity lasers, and in optical pulse propagation through periodic and nonlinear media. Slusher is director of Quantum Information Research at Lucent Technologies, Bell Laboratories.

Engineering Excellence Award
Recipient: Jean-Claude Diels
Jean-Claude Diels of the University of New Mexico is the recipient of the Engineering Excellence Award, given in recognition of technical achievements in optical engineering by individual(s) or teams. Diels received the award for his contributions to high-precision measurements (inertial, nonliner index, and subpicometer displacements) by new phase interferometry using phase-to-frequency conversion inside a mode-locked laser cavity reaching sensitivities of less than 10-7 rad.

Joseph Fraunhofer Award/Robert M. Burley Prize
Recipient: Susumu Noda
Susumu Noda, a professor at Kyoto University, has been selected to receive the Joseph Fraunhofer Award recognizing significant accomplishments in optical engineering. He is being honored for fabricating some of the world's most advanced photonic crystals and photonic crystal devices, working uncompromisingly at optical frequencies.

Goodman Book Writing Award (co-sponsored with SPIE)
Recipient: Harrison H. Barrett and Kyle J. Myers
Harrison H. Barrett and Kyle J. Myers are being awarded the Goodman Book Writing Award for their book, Foundations of Image Science. Bestowed for the first time this year and funded by the J.W. and H.M. Goodman Foundation, this award is to be given biannually by OSA and SPIE to recognize a recent and outstanding book in the field of optics and photonics that has contributed significantly to research, teaching, or the optics and photonics industry. Barrett is a professor in the College of Medicine and the College of Optical Sciences at the University of Arizona. Myers is currently the director of the Medical Imaging and Diagnostics Laboratory at the Center for Devices and Radiological Health of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration where she has been since 1987.

Nick Holonyak Jr. Award
Recipient: James J. Coleman
Honoring his career of contributions to quantum well and strained-layer semiconductor lasers through innovative epitaxial growth methods and novel device designs, James J. Coleman is being presented the Nick Holonyak Jr. Award. This award recognizes significant contributions to optics based on semiconductor-based devices and optical materials, including basic science and technological applications. Coleman is the Intel Alumni Endowed Chair in Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Illinois.

Edwin H. Land Medal (co-sponsored with the Society for Imaging Science and Technology)
Recipient: George H. Heilmeier
Co-sponsored with the Society for Imaging Science and Technology, the Land Medal is given in recognition of pioneering entrepreneurial creativity that has had a major public impact. This year's award goes to George H. Heilmeier, chairman emeritus of Telcordia Technologies, for the discovery of new electro-optic effects in liquid crystals, and visionary anticipation of today's liquid crystal displays.

Ellis R. Lippincott Award (co-sponsored with the Coblentz Society and the Society for Applied Spectroscopy)
Recipient: Hai-Lung Dai
The Hirschmann-Makineni Professor of Chemistry and Director of Penn Science Teacher Institute, Hai-Lung Dai, has been selected to receive the Lippincott Award for seminal studies of structure/dynamics of radicals, highly excited molecules, adsorbates and buried interfaces at surfaces through innovative spectroscopic techniques, and for demonstrating extraordinarily efficient transition-dipole-mediated vibrational energy transfer. The Lippincott Award recognizes outstanding contributions to vibrational spectroscopy and the selection committee consists of members from all three societies.

Adolph Lomb Medal
Recipient: John Charles Howell
The Lomb Medal, recognizing noteworthy contributions to optics before reaching the age of 35, goes to John Charles Howell for innovative contributions in quantum optics, particularly to aspects of quantum cloning, violations of Bell's inequalities and maximal photonic entanglement. Howell received his Ph.D. in physics from the Pennsylvania State University and did his postdoctoral work at Oxford University. He joined the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Rochester in February 2002.

William F. Meggers Award
Recipient: Jun Ye
Jun Ye is being honored with the Meggers Award for the development of innovative spectroscopic techniques based on femtosecond optical frequency combs. The William F. Meggers award honors outstanding work in spectroscopy. Ye is a fellow of the Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics (JILA) and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and an associate professor adjoint in the Department of Physics at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

New Focus/Bookham Student Award
Recipient: Virginia O. Lorenz
Virginia O. Lorez of JILA, University of Colorado and NIST was named the winner of the New Focus/Bookham Student Award in May. The award was established in 1997 to encourage research excellence, presentation prowess, and leadership in the optics community among OSA student members. Lorenz received the award for her presentation titled "Three-pulse photon echo peak shift measurements in dense potassium vapor."

David Richardson Medal
Recipient: Gary S. Duck
Recognizing contributions to optical engineering, primarily in the commercial and industrial sectors, the Richardson Medal is presented to Gary S. Duck for innovation and leadership in the development and manufacture of optical components and instrumentation for the realization of practical and reliable wavelength-division-multiplexed optical fiber telecommunications systems. Duck retired from JDSU in 2001 and started Ventana Management Services in Ottawa.

Edgar D. Tillyer Award
Recipient: Donald I.A. MacLeod
Donald I.A. MacLeod of the Department of Psychology at the University of California, San Diego, is the recipient of the Edgar D. Tillyer Award, in recognition of distinguished work in the field of vision. MacLeod is being honored for unparalleled virtuosity in the psychophysical dissection of the visual pathway into the stages that culminate in color, spatial and temporal vision.

Charles Hard Townes Award
Recipient: Orazio Svelto
Orazio Svelto received the C. H. Townes Award in recognition of outstanding contributions to the field of quantum electronics. He was honored for pioneering work on ultrashort laser pulses and solid state lasers, and for the invention of the hollow-fiber compressor, leading to advances in extreme nonlinear optics and attosecond science. Svelto is currently a professor of quantum electronics at the Polytechnic School of Milan.

John Tyndall Award (co-sponsored with IEEE/Lasers and Electro-Optics Society)
Recipient: Donald R. Scifres
Awarded in recognition of contributions to fiber optic technology, the Tyndall award goes to Donald R. Scifres for seminal contributions to semiconductor laser diode technology that powers the optical fiber networks and as an entrepreneur in creating one of the premier companies that bring to practice the semiconductor diode laser technology to serve the fiber optics industry. Scifres founded SDL Ventures, LLC, an investment firm focusing on early-stage investments in the lasers, photonics, fiber optics and microwave communications, and biotech fields after serving as co-chairman and chief strategy officer of JDS Uniphase Corporation. This was awarded in March at OFC/NFOEC 2006.

R.W. Wood Prize
Recipients: Louis E. Brus, Alexander L. Efros, and Aleksey Ekimov
The Wood Prize recognizes an outstanding discovery, a scientific or technological achievement or an invention. Louis E. Brus, Alexander L. Efros, and Aleksey Ekimov are being honored for the discovery of nanocrystal quantum dots and pioneering studies of their electronic and optical properties. Brus is on the faculty at Columbia University, Efros is a senior researcher at the Naval Research Laboratory, and Ekimov works for Nanocrystals Technology Inc.